PN203 
.L6 
1821 




LITERAL TRANSLATION 



OF 



LOJyGINUS. 



BY A GRADUATE OF TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN* 



^ SECTION XIII 



DUBLIN: 

PRINTED FOR BYRNE, 26, ANGLESEA-STREET, 
AND A, M. GRAHAM, 16, COLLEGE-GREEN. 




1 %t\ 



•Weetern Oat. JJniv. Library 
OCT 19 1940 



PREFACE. 



The present literal translation of Lon- 
ginus is intended solely for the use of 
the Undergraduates of the University of 
Dublin. 

The necessity of such a performance 
is sufficiently obvious, to render any apo- 
logy for its publication superfluous. 

The translation of Mr. Smith is a 
work of uncommon merit, written by 
a man of genius, and enriched with 
many valuable notes, and observations ; 
but it is not literal, nor does it profess to 
be so. 



To those who are acquainted wdth the 
difficulty of this species of composition, 
it % unnecessary to apologize for the 




11 



language of the text; with respect to 
the notes the Translator does not as- 
same to himself any merit, as he owes 
the greater part of them to the observa- 
tions of others. — xllthough he has not 
been very voluminous in this department, 
he trusts his selection, if it does not 
satisfy curiosity, may serve at least to 
stimulate research. — From a similar mo- 
tive he has not been anxious to collect 
a variety of parallel passages ; — those 
the recollection and taste of his readers 
can easily supply. 

As his great object has been fidelity, 
wherever Mr. Smith's version appeared 
to him to be literal he has adopted it, 
and he is entirely indebted to him for the 
poetical translation. 

Trinity College^ 
July, 1821. 



LONGINUS. 



SECTION I. 

The short treatise which Cecilius composed on 
the Sublime, appeared to us when we read it atten- 
tively together (as you may recollect my dear Teren- 
tianus) every where i too mean for the subject, and 
by no means attaining to the requisite things, nor 
procuring much advantage to the readers, which 
ought to be the principal aim of a writer. Besides 
two things being required in every treatise on an art, 
the first, to explain what the subject is, the second, 
in order, but in excellence the firsts, to tell how and 
by what means this very thing may be acquired by 
us : Cecilius however, by innumerable examples, en- 
deavours to explain to us, as if ignorant of it, what 
the sublime is ; but this, viz. by what means we would 
be able to advance our natural powers to some pro- 
gress in the sublime, he has unaccountably omitted 
as unnecessary. Perhaps however it is not as fair to 
blame this man for his omissions, as to praise him 
for his reflection ^ and diligence. 

Since you have ordered me to write a commentary 
on the sublime, solely on your account, come let 
us try if we appear to have made any reflections 
that may prove useful to men 4 conversant in the 

B 

^ Adjectives have been frequently used for adverbs. 

^ " Tempore posterius re atque usu prius,"— Sal lust. 

3 Or *' invention.** As he was the first who wrote on this subject, 
his originality must plead for his omissions. 

* Mr. Smith says the Greek word comprehends those ** who write 
for the world, or speak in publ^/^ 




'1 



LONGINUS 



world. But you, my friend, shall pass the truest 
judgment on each part (as you are calculated by 
nature to do, and it is fit you should); for well did 
that Philosopher, who declared what we had re- 
sembling the Gods, say, it was " beneficence and 
truth." But when writing to you my dear friend, 
so well versed in literature, I am nearly freed from 
the necessity of prefacing ^ in many words, that the 
sublime is something excellent and perfect in writing, 
and that both the greatest poets and prose writers 
gained their eminence by no other way than this, 
and made their praises immortal. For the sublime 
does not lead the audience to conviction, but to ex- 
tacy; and on the whole the wonderful, astonishing 
the mind, is in every instance superior to that formed 
to persuade or please: since the persuasive for the 
most part depends on ourselves, but this bringing 
with it power and strength irresistible, gains the as- 
cendant over every hearer. Besides, we see the skill 
of invention and the proper arrangement and dispo- 
sition of facts displayed, not by one or two expres- 
sions, but hardly by the whole texture of the dis- 
course, whilst the sublime, seasonably sent forth^, has 
borne down all thuigs like a thunderbolt, and shewn 
at once the condensed powers of the orator. / am 
relieved from the trouble of telling all this to you my 
dear Tereiuianus, for these and such like observa- 
tions you could yourself suggest to others from your 
own experience. 

SECTIOxM II. 

BUT this is first to be inquired into by us, whether 

til ere is any art in the subiiine or dei. p, since some 

5 Establishing this point, laying this dowa as a foundation for 
my futiire remarks; this see'-is to be the force of the verb. 

6 The siaiile ho used sugr{ested the Greek te<m, which is properly- 
applied to the da'lin:^, tuunder. — The rapidity of iij^J.tning and 
the i.-vbUnie is st ongi^ x^pri^sented oy the u.-^e of the r)erfect tense ; 
we are unaDie to perceive its approach, its presence and effect ar|i,/elt 
simultaneously. 



ON THE SUBLIME. 



3 



think that those who reduce such things to the rules 
of art are quite deceived. 

For the sublime," such an objector says, " is the 
gift of nature, and cannot be acquired i by instruc- 
tion," and " there is but one art for it, to be born 
with the talent," and the works of nature, as they 
imagine, become w^orse, and in every respect inferior 
when parched up by the rules of art 2 but I af- 
firm that this can be proved to be otherwise, if any 
one would consider, that though nature has a dis- 
cretionary power in the pathetic and elevated, she 
does not wish to be in any respect rash and altoge- 
ther void of method ; and, — that though she is the 
first and grand origin of the existence of the sublime, 
yet method is able to determine its quantity, and 
the proper time for each instance of it, and still 
more to point out the safest exercise and use of it ; 
and — that the sublime is more liable to danger when 
by itself, left without management, unsteady, and 
unbalanced, abandoned to its own impetuosity, and 
ill directed boldness^ ; for as it has often occasion for 
the spur, so it has also for the rein. For what 
Demosthenes asserts about common life, that good 
(^fortune is the greatest advantage, but the next and 
\np less important is prudence, which completely takes 
■ with it even the benefit of the other from those wuth 
iwhom it is not present:" this we could also affirm 
fabjDut writing, that nature supplies the place of 
fortune, but art that of prudence. 

B 2 

1 Is not one of those additions which education makes to our na- 
tural powers. 2 Horace decided the dispute between art and 
nature nearly in the same way : 

" Natura fieret laudabile Carmen an arte 
- '* Queesitum est : ego nec studiura sine divite vena 
** Nec rude quid possit video ingenium : alterius sic 
" Altera poscit opem res et conjurat amice," 
5 Ovid has used this simile of an unsteady ship, very ha;ppily ia 
speaking of Phaeton's chariot : 

Utq : labant curvse justo sine pondere naves 
Perque mare instabiles nimia levitate feruntur 
Sic onere assueto vacuos dat in aera saltus 
Succutiturq : alte, sdmilisq : «st curru inani" 



4 



LONGINUS 



This fact also (and it is of the greatest weight), 
viz. that there are some things in writing which 
depend on nature alone, we must learn from no 
other source than art. If, as I said, he who censures 
those learning useful precepts would consider those 
things separately, he would no longer, as it seems to 
me, suppose a few thougts on the subject superfluous 
or useless. 

SECTION III. 1 

" AND check the tapering blaze of their hearth ; 

For if I shall only see one householder 

Sending one curl of flame with the strength of a torrent^ 

Fll set fire to the house and reduce it to ashes. 

I have by no means sung a generous songJ^ 

Those are not tragical but supertragical, " curls" and 
to " vomit forth to heaven,*' and making Boreas a 
" piper,"s and the other things which follow. For they 
are obscured by the expi'ession, and confused by the 
images, rather than rendered forcible ; and if you 
would examine each of them by the light, from the 
terrible it gradually sinks into the despicable. 
But since in tragedy, a thing naturally grand and 
admitting pompous expression, such immoderate 
swelling is unpardonable, it could hardly suit, I think, 
compositions founded on truth. On this account the 
expressions of the Leontine Gorgias are laughed at 
who wrote " Xerxes the Jupiter of the Persians 
and Vultures living sepulchres and some in the 
writings of Callisthenes, which are not sublime but 
glaring, and still more those of Clitarchus, for he 
is a puffy ^ writer, and blows, according to Sopho- 
cles, " with no small pipes 4, but without a mouth 

1 There is a great deficiency here, but it is evident he is speaking 
of bombast, of which he produces an example from the Orithyia of 
^schylus, as some suppose. 

2 This expression, *' avXtiThf^ may have some reference to fiiXis 
in the preceding example. 

3 Nonne hoc spumosum et cortice pingui. — Persius, SaL^-f . 

4 His attempts are great, but require to be regulated and modified 



ON THE SUBLIME. 



5 



piece 5." The writings of Amphicrates Hegesias and 
Matris are of this description ; for often appearing to 
themselves to be inspired, they are not influenced by 
a God but by folly. But on the whole this swelling 
style seems to be amongst the faults most difficult to 
guard against, for all those who affect sublimity, and 
shun the imputation of a weak and dry style, are, I 
know not how, naturally hurried into this, mindful 
of the old saying, " to fail in great attempts is how- 
ever a noble failing;'' but those empty and false tu- 
mours, both in the human body and in writings, are 
baneful, and we should be on our guard lest they lead 
us round to the opposite extreme; for nothing is 
(they say) more dry than a man afflicted with a dropsy.e" 

This swelling style, however, wishes to surpass the 
sublime ; the puerile on the contrary, is quite opposite 
to the sublime, for it is a perfectly low, mean, and in 
truth, most ignoble fault. What then is this puerile 
style ? It is manifestly 7 a scholastic thought, de- 
generating into the frigid, through a scrupulous un- 
necessary exactness. But those writers fall into this 
style who aim at the neat, exact, and above all the 
agreeable, but unhappily jostle against what is low, 
and bad affectations. 

There is a third sort of imperfection akin to this, 
which occurs in the pathetic, which Theodorus used 
to call the Parenthyrse^ ; it is an unseasonable and 
useless exciting of the passions where there is no 
occasion for it; or immoderate, where there is 

B 3 

^ The ^o^piiia, was used to protect their lips from injury, amd 
present their breathing too harshly into the instrument. 
6 ** Crescit indulgens sibi dirus hydrops 
" Nec sitim pellit nisi causa morbi 
*' Fugerit venis et aquosus albo" 

Corpore languor — Horace, 
7 Literally, — let it be manifest. 

^ Properly applied to writers who want the taste and judgment to 
diitinguish what may with propriety be imitated, what is in itself 
worthy of approbation. 

_} Derived from wisg*, contrary to 0*^^#p, the spear of Bacchus ; 
quite opposite to that natural and necessary excitement of the pajwions 
by the influence oi Bacchus. 




LONGINXJS 



need of a moderate. Some writers are often, as if 
intoxicated, hurried into passions in no way con- 
nected with their subject, but peculiar to them- 
selves and scholastic ; they are then ridiculous in 
the eyes of their auditors, who are by no means 
affected, — and justly — falling into transports before 
those who are unmoved; — but another place is re- 
served by us to treat of the pathetic. 

SECTION IV. 

OF one of those faults which I mentioned (I mean 
the frigid) Timaeus is full, a man in other respects 
excellent, not destitute of the sublime, learned, and 
refi cting ; but too fond of censuring the faults of 
others and blind to his own, and uiten through a 
fondness for always starting new thoughts, falling into 
the childish. I will produce but one or two exam- 
ples from this writer, since Cecilius has before me 
given several. Praising Alexander the Great, he 
says, Who overran the entire of Asia in fewer 
years than I?ocrates wrote his panegyric on the war 
against the Persians." Here is a rare comparison 
of the Macedonian i with a sophist. It is manifest 
at this rate, Timaeus, that the Lacedemonians were 
left far behind in vigour by Isocrates, since they took 
Messene in thirty years, 2 and he composed his pane- 
gyric barely in ten. But how does he exclaim against 
the Athenians taken in Sicily? " Becau-^e they acted 
with impiety towards Hermes and mutilated his sta- 
tues, on account of this, they suffered punishment, 
particularly through one man, Hermocrates son of 
Hermon, who by his father was descended from that 
injured God." So that I wonder my dear Teren- 
tianus, why he does not write against the tyrant Di- 

1 Thus Horace diffidit urbiiim 

Portas vir Macedo : Ho race Od e s. 

J As Messene was taken in the twentieth not the thirtieth year, 
Faber conjectures, Longinus wrote 20, for which the copyists sub- 
slUuted 30.— Fearce^ 



ON THE SUBLIME. 



7 



onysius, since he behaved with irreverence to Dia 
(Jupiter) and Hercules, for this, Dion and Hera- 
elides deprived him of his power." And why need 
I speak of Timasus, since even those heroes in writ- 
ing (Xenophon and Plato I mean), though of the 
school of Socratt's, yet through a fondness for those 
low conceits sometimes forget themselves ; the one in 
his description of the government of the Lacedaemo- 
nians writes, You could sooner hear the voice of 
stone statues than theirs, or engage the eyes of bra- 
zen ones; you would think them more modest even 
than the virgins ^ in their eyes. 4" It might become 
an Amphicrates not a Xenophon to call the pupils in 
our eyes, modest virgins. But O Hercules ! what a 
monstrous thing it was to be persuaded that the pu- 
pils of all without distinction are modest, when it is 
a common saying, that the impudence of some per- 
sons is indicated by nothing so much as the eyes. 
Homer calls an impudent man " Di unkard ! thou 
dog in eye." Timaeus, as if meeting with something 
worth stealing, could not pass this frigid expression in 
Xenophon, therefore speaking of Agathocles, he 
says even this, " That he forcibly took and went off 
with his own cousin, given in marriage to another, 
after the ceremony of unveiling-^, which crime could 
any one commit who had virgins not strumpets in 

^ Ila^0iv9s and xS^n both signify a virgin, but the latter is also ap- 
plied to the pupil of the eye. Xenophon thought he might be al- 
lowed to use them as synonymous in both senses. Some editions re- 
lieve him from this charge by a different reading, but we can hardly 
suppose Longinus, so mild a critic, would at random and on bare re- 
collection, censure one whom he allowed to be one of ihe heroes of 
literature. 

* I have marked 

A thousand blushing apparitions 

To start into her face ; a thousand innocent shames 

In angel whiteness bear away those blushes, 

And in her eye tlure haih aj^p eared a fire 

To hum the errors that these j^rinces hold 

uigainst her maiden truth." Much Ado about Nothing. 
5 It was the custom for unmnrried women to wear a veil, which they 
took off the first, or as some say, the third day after marriage. 



LONGINUS 



his eyes But what ! the great Plato in some 
things so divine, when he would speak of books, says 
When they have written they will deposit their cy- 
press monuments in temples;'' and again, " With 
respect to walls, Megilkis, I would agree in opinion 
with Sparta, viz. to permit the walls to sleep reclined 
on the ground, and not to rouse them." And this 
expression of Herodotus is not far from the frigid, 
when he calls beautiful women the pains of the 
eye." Although it has some excuse, for those who 
say so in his history are barbarians and intoxicated ; 
but it is not proper even in such characters 6 to be 
ridiculous in the sight of posterity, for a pitiful con- 
ceit. 

SECTION V. 

ALL these improprieties are produced in writings 
by one cause, — A fondness for novelty in the 
thoughts." (about which the writers of the present 
day are quite run n. ad) for our imperfections are wont 
to proceed nearly from the same source whence spring 
our excellencies; thus beauties of expression and 
sublimity, besides a delicate and pleasing style, con- 
tribute to the perfection of writing, and those very 
things, as they are the cause of success, so they are 
the origin and foiindation of the contrary; also hy- 
perboles and plurals are of this description. But 
we will shew in a subsequent part, the danger which 
they seem to have. Therefore it is now necessary to 
Inquire and determine, by what means we may be able 
to avoid the vices mixed w^ith the sublime. 

SECTION VL 

THESE are the means. — To procure above all 
things a clear knowledge and discernment of the true 



^ Or " following the example of such men," sonae read 7r^6^9,nmi. 
no pretence can warrant such expressions. 



ON THE SUBLIME. 9 

sublirne : although it is a thing hard to be acquired, for 
the power of judging compositions is the last frait of 
much experience ; not but that (to speak in precept) • 
it may be possible to acquire this discernment from 
these rules. 

SECTION VII. 

"THIS you must be assured of, my dear friend, 
that, as even in common life, nothing is great which 
it is noble to despise, thus {for instance) riches, ho- 
nor, glory, power, and as many other things as have 
much external pomp, cannot appear to a wise man 
extraordinary blessings, since the act of despising 
them is no trivial blessing, and therefore men admire 
those who are able to possess them, and through a 
nobleness of soul despise them, more than those in 
the actual possession, i Thus also we must take care 
in examining the sublime in poetry, and writing in 
general, lest any should have such an appearance of 
sublimity (to which much is joined that is uselessly 
annexed)^, but when unfolded, they may be found to 
be only an empty tumour, which it is more generous 
to despise than admire. For our mind is in a man- 
ner naturally transported by the true sublime, and 
receiving a proud elevation is filled with joy and a 
sense of self-importance, as if itself proouced what 
it only heard^. When therefore any thing often 
heard by a man of judgment and experience in writ- 
ing, does not dispose his soul to generous thoughts, 
and leave in his mind more to be conceived than has 
been expressed, but sinks and degenerates if you 4 

* Or to speak in an encouraging manner. 

1 On this account we admire that answer cf Curius, " Malo im 
perare aurum habentibus quam aurum habere.'* 

2 It is remared in the notes to Boileau's translation, that the great 
Prince of Conde, on hearing this passage, cried out, " Voila le Sub- 
lime, — voila son veritable Caracte^e ! Sm j t h . 

3 Sententiam adjectione supervacanea atque tumida perdere. " 

Seneca. 

* The use of the second person is supposed by Toupius to be an 




: " When any passage 



10 



LONGINUS 



frequently examine it ; that cannot be the true sub- 
lim'^, being only retained whilst listened to. For this is 
in reality 'he sublirrc, which iecr es much to be con- 
ceived, and to resist which is dilRcult, or rather im- 
possible ; b.it I he eCc>P'^ction of it remains lively, 
and hard to be effaced. On t!>e ^Ahole, be assured, 
that is proper and true buhlia-e, which pleases at 
al^ times and ail persons: for wnen one and thesame 
opinion is delivered c i the same composition by 
persons of difFcient professions, lives, pursuits, ages, 
and Janguag.s, then this decision as it were and 
agreement (/* things so disc rdant, stamps a high 
and indisputable value on the admired performance. 

SECTION VIII. 

THERE are, as one may say, five most fruitful 
sources of ihe sublime (the faculty of speaking well 
being previously established as a connnon foundation 
for those five sorts, without which nothing is of the 
least use), the first and most excellent is a happy 
boldness in the thoughts, as we have shewn in our 
treatise on Xen@phon. The 2d. A vehement and 
enthusiastic passion ; now tho:'e two constituents of 
the sublime are, for the most part, impi anted by nature, 
but the rest come from art. The 3d. A certain forming 
of figures (those njay be two fold, the one of senti- 
ment the other of languag'^). Besides, (the 4th, ^ an 
elegant mode of expression, which may also be di« 
vided into a judicious selection of words, and a lan- 
guage filled with tropes and laboured ; but the 5th 
source of the sublime, which gives the finish to all 
that \vont before, is the power of composing in a 
dignified and elevated manner. Come, now let us 
examine the things comprehended in each sort, pre- 
facing this, that there are some of those five parts 
which Cecilius has omitted, as for instance, about 

from an author of judgment and experience in writing, being often 
tieaifd, does not dispose your mind to generous thoughts, &c.'* 



ON THE SUBLIME* 



II 



the passions. B' \ if both those things, viz. the sub- 
lime and p.'Jthetic, were considered by him as one, and 
seemed to him to co-exist and spring up together, he is 
mistaken ; tor s(^me pas:=;iors are found distinct from 
the sublime, even of a low nature, as lamentation, 
grief, fear, and on the other hand, there are many 
sublime passages thai do not excise our passions ; as 
(with innumerable oth-^r example^,} those bold expres- 
sions of the poet i about the sons of Aloeus — 

" To raise 

Huge Ossa on Uh/mpus' top they strove^ 
And place on Ossa PcLion "jcith its grove^ 
That heaven itself thus clivtbed might be assailed''* — 

and that which is added is still bolder, Nor would 
success, &c." With orators, indeed, encomiums and 
those writings composed for pomp and show^, com- 
pletely embrace the sublime, and for the most part 
are destitute of the pathetic : whence those orators 
who wish to excite our passions, are by no means 
fond of panegyric, and on the other hand, those who 
are panegyi'ists, fail in exciting the passions. But if 
again, Cecilius did not think that the pathetic ever 
I contributed to the sublime, and on this account did 
not think it worthy to be mentioned, he is quite in 
error ; for I would confidently determine that nothing 
is so sublime as a proper pathos properly applied, 
with a madness and enthusiastic spirit, as it were 
breathing into, and inspiring the v/ords. 

SECTION IX. 

BUT since the first (I mean natural sublimity of 
thought) holds the chief place, we ought even here 
(though it is the gift of nature rather thaii a quality 
to be acquired.) ^^till educate our souls to subhmity 
as far as it is posbibie,, and make them as it were preg- 
nant with souie noble elevation* In what way ? you 



1 Longiuus, as well as many other writers, frequently styles 
Homer in an eminent manner The Poet, as if none but he had de- 
served the title. Smith. 



12 



LONGINUS 



will ask. I have said in another place, that such 
sublimity is the echo of a noble mind ; whence even 
without words a naked thought by itself is sometimes 
admired on account of that greatness of soul — as the 
silence of Ajax i in the descent into Hell 2 is grand 
and more sublime than any expression. First, then 
it is absolutely necessary to lay down the source from 
which it is derived ; namely, that a true oraior ought 
not have mean or ungenerous thoughts ; for it is not 
possible that those who during their whole lives 
think of, and pursue low and servile things, could 
produce any thing surprising and worth the attention 
of all ages ; but the expressions of those are neces- 
sarily grand whose thoughts are weighty and im- 
portant; thus the sublime falls to the lot of those of 
the most exalted minds. For when Parmenio said, 
" I would be content with these conditions if I were 
Alexander," the reply which Alexander made, 
" And I would if I were Parmenio,'* shews his own 
greatness of mind ; thus also the distance from earth 
to heaven bounds the subliuiity of Homer's genius in 
this description of discordj " She fixed her head in 
the heavens and walks upon the ground ;" ^ any one 

1 As the Rambler has an aigned the judgment of Virgil, in trans- 
ferring this silence to Dido, we give the reader the passage taken 
from No. 121. 

" When ^neas is sent by Virgil to visit the shades, he meets v^^ith 
" Dido, whom his perfidy had hurried to the grave : he accosts her 
" with tenderness and excuses : but the lady turns away like Ajax, 
" in mute disdain. She turns away, like Ajax — but she resembles him 

in none of those qualities which might give either dignity or pro- 
" priety to silence. She might, without any departure from the tenor 
** of her conduct, have burst out like other irjured women into cla- 
** niour, reproach, anc'. deiiunciation. But Virgil had his imagina- 
^* tion full of Ajax, and therefore could not prevail on hira^lf to 

teach Dido any otner mode of resentment." 

2 The Foen scf Homer were at firsr handed about separately, each 
with an appropriate title, as " The Battle near the Ships," — Pa- 
troclus," — " List of the Ships,'' &c. till collected by Pisistratus, 
and published as wfe now have them. This part of the Odyssey was 
called the Descent into Hell. 

3 There is some confusion in the translation, occasioi ed by the 
patching cf the original j this is said to be the most mutilated passage 
jn LoBginus. 



ON THE SUBLIME. 



IS 



may justly say, that this was not more the measure of 
discord than Homer, which Hesiod's description of 
melancholy is very unlike, if we are to conclude the 
shield is Hesiod's; — From her nostrils moisture 
flowed," for he has not made the image terrific, but 
loathsome. But how sublime Homer renders his 
descriptions of the gods — 

" Far as a shepherd^ from S07ne point on Jiigh^ 
OVr the mde main extends his boundless eye^ 

" Thrd such a space of air with thundering sounds 
At one long leap tK immortal coursers boundP 

Pope. 

He measures their bound by the limit of the world. 
Who then might not ju>tly say, on account of the 
excessive sublimity of this passage, that if the horses 
of the gods took two continued bounds, they could 
not find a landing place in the world. The images 
introduced in the combat of the gods are also ex- 
ceedingly sublime — 

Heaven in loud thunders bids the trumpet sounds 

And wide beneath them groans the rending ground — 
^' Deep in the dismal regions of the dead 

TA' inf ernal monarch rear'd his horrid head^ 
<^ Leaped from his throne^ lest Neptune' s arm should lay 

His dark dominions open to the day — 
" And pour in light on Pluto's drear abodes^ 
" Abhorfd by men^ and dreadful ev'n to godsJ^ ^ 

POFE. 

c 

4 As many readers have a prejudice against verse translations, they 
may vi'ish to have those passages in prose. 

" As much of the horizon as a man sees with his eyes, sitting on 
some place of observation, looking over the black sea, so much do the 
loud resounding horses of the gods take in a leap " 

Second passage. But the great heaven and Olympus* thundered 
all round, and beneath, Pluto, the king of the infernal regions, feared, 
and fearing started from his throne, aiid shouted, lest the earths shaking 

* Or rather as Ccvi^per has expressed it, 

*' Sang them together with a trumpet's voice." 



LONGINUS 



You see^ my friend, how the earth, being torn from 
its foundation, and Tartarus itself exposed to view, 
the whole world being upturned and destroyed, all 
things together, heaven and hell, things mortal and 
immortal, engage in, and share the danger of the 
battle which then took place; but those expressions, 
so bold indeed, unless they are taken in an allegori- 
Cfll sense, are downright impious, and do not pre- 
serve due decorum. Homer indeed, appears to me, 
in describing the wounds of the gods, their seditions, 
revenge, tears, chains, and sufferings of all sorts, to 
have made the men concerned in the Trojan war 
gods, as far as was in his power, but the gods men, 
with this difference, that death is reserved for us 
when unhappy, as the port to shelter us from our mis- 
fortunes ; but he has made not only the nature, but 
also the unhappinesof the gods eternal. Much bet- 
ter than this description of the combat of the gods, 
are those verses which represent the deity as he 
really is, undefiled, great, and pure: such are these 
on Neptune, (this passage has been treated of by 
many before me) 



? trod, y 

rod; 3 



Fierce as he past the lofty mountains 
The forests shalcc^ earth trembled as he 
And felt the footsteps of th' immortal i 
His whirli72g xvheels the glassy surface sweep ^ 
TK enormous monsters rolling der the deep, 
Gavibol around him on the waf ry waij^ 
And heavy whales in awkward measures play ; 
The sea subsiding spreads a level plain, 
Exults^ andoxms the Monarch of the Main ; 
The parting waxjes before his coursers fy, 
The wondering zvaters leave the axle dry J' 6 Pope. 

Keptune should f Jiext burst asunder the earth, and his habitations 
should appear to mortals, and immortals, teirible, squalid, which 
even the Gods abhor 

f Homer has v^tt^h, from above 

5 This passage is the best comment on / <rcXX>} n aiiech*i- 
^t^i0 in the 7th Section. 

6 " The vast mountains trembled, both the wood and its summits, 



ON THE SUBLIME. 



IS 



Thus also the lawgiver of the Jews, no ordinary 
person 7, after he formed a conception of the power 
of the deity suited to its dignity, declared it, writ- 
ing immediately in the commencement of his laws — 

God said," says he, what? let there be light, 
and there was ; let the earth be, and it was 8/' Per- 
haps, my friend, I would not appear troublesome in 
producing one more passage from the poet about the 
affairs of men, that you may learn how he is accus- 
tomed to mount with them to heroic grandeur. Sud- 
denly darkness and sluggish night, as he tells us, re- 
strains the combat of the Greeks ; here Ajax, per- 
plexed and doubting, says — 

Accept a Warrior^ s prayWy Eternal Jor>e ; 
*^ This cloud of darkness from the Greeks remove ^ 
" Give us but lights and let us see our foes^ 
*^ We'll bravely fall though Jove himself oppose,^^ 9 

This is, in truth, the passion of an Ajax ; for he does 
not pray to live (for that wouW be a petition beneath 
a hero), but since in sluggish darkness he could use 
his valour in no illustrious exploit, on that account 
indignant, as he was useless in the fight, he prays for 
light as soon as possible, determined to find a death 
worthy of his valour, even though Jove himself should 
oppose him. Homer here, like a prosperous breeze, 

c 2 

the city of the Trojans, and ships of the Greeks, under the immortal 
feet of Neptune as he went along : he proceeded to drive over the 
waves, but the whales exulted beneath him in every direction from 
their retreats, and acknowledged their King. The sea divided through 
joy ; but the horses were flying, &c. 

7 '* Naturae verique non sordidus auctor.'' Horace. 

S " The sublimity of this passage, says Blair, " arises from the 
strong conception it gives of an exertion of power producing its ef- 
fect with the utmost speed and facility." — Smith remarks, that the in- 
terrogation between the narrative part and the words of the Almighty 
himself, carries with it an air of reverence and veneration ; it seems 
designed to av/aken the reader, and raise his awful attention to the 
voice of the great Creator. 

9 " O Father Jupiter, deliver the sons of the Greeks from thi» 
darkness ; make a serene sky ; allow us to see with our eyes, and 
even destroy us in the light," 

^0 Properly a funeral gai'ment. 



16 



LONGINUS 



inspires and animates the combats and feels the very 
passions of his heroes, or, 

" With such a furious rage his steps advance^ 
" As when the god of battle shakes his lance^ 
" Or baleful flames on some thick forest cast^ 

iiwift marching lay the "wooded mountain waste^ 
" Around his mouth a foamy moisture stands^^ 8^c. n 

Yet he shews in his Odyssey (for I must add 
those observations for many reasons) that in its old 
age, a fondness for the fabulous is peculiar to a great 
genius declining. It is manifest that he composed 
this piece last, from many other circumstances as well 
as this, that he has introduced the sequel of those 
calamities begun at Troy in his Odyssey, as episodes 
to the Trojan war; and from his mentioning lamenta- 
tion and grief as before well known to his heroes ; for 
the Odyssey is nothing but an epilogue to the Iliad ; 

*V There ^warlike Ajax^ there Achilles lies^ 
" Patroclus there, a man divinely wise^ 
There too my dearest son^' S$c. 12 

From the same cause, I think, it is that he made the 
whole body of the Iliad, which was written in the 
vigour of his genius full of action and spirited ; that 
of the Odysey for the most part full of narration, 
which is the characteristic of old age. Wherefore a 
person may compare Homer in the Odyssey to the 
setting sun, whose greatness remains without its in- 
tense heat; for in this he no longer preserves that 
stretch of thought which appears in his Iliad, nor 
that equal and unremittiitg sublimity, nor a like pro- 
fusion of passions crowded one upon another, nor that 
versatile and vehement, forcible style, replete with 

11 " He rages as when the spear-brandishing Mars, or destructive 
fire rages on the mountains, in the thick recesses of an extensive 
wood, but there ig a foam about his mouth, &c.'* 

12 Trojae sub moenibus altis 

Tot nali cecidere Deum : quin occidit una 
Sarpedon mea progenies — Virg: ^aeid 10th. 
13 Tiiat great variety, that quick transition from one subject t® 



ON THE SUBLIME. 



t.7 



images drawn from life: the ebbings of bis sublime 
genius appear even in those fabulous and incredible 
wanderings ^"^^ as of the ocean when it retir<'S within 
itself and deserts its peculiar limits. But though 
speaking thus, I do not forget those storms described 
in the Odyssey, and the description of the Cyclops 
and some other passages ; but I call these, old age, 
the old age however of Homer. But in all and each of 
these there is still more narrative than action. I have 
made this digression, as I said, to shew how very easily 
sublime geniuses fall into trifles in the decline of 
their vigour. Of this kind is what he says of the 
bag, and those fed in the form of sv^ine by Circe, 
(whom Zoilus calls squeaking pigs,) and Jupiter fed 
by doves like one of their young, and the person that 
took no sustenance for ten days in a shipwreck, and 
thoscwncredible stories about the death of the suitors; 
what else can we call those than in reality the 
dreams of Jove ? But for a second reason, those re- 
marks on the Odyssey were made ; that it may be 
known to you, how a want of power to excite the pas- 
sions in great prose writers and poets, dwindles into 
a description of manners; for such things as his 
moral description of the suitors' lives in speaking of 
the house of Ulysses, are a kind of comedy which 
describes the characters oi men* 

SECTION X. 

COME now let us see if we have any other thing 
which could render writings sublime ; since then some 
particulars are naturally united to all things, origi- 
nating with the matter itself, it would of necessity be 

c 3 

another, in this sense he used the word in Sect. xxii. cLy^iffr^o^ugj 

14 I have translated this passage from the correction in the text, 
which is not perhaps very necessary. And the wanderings of 
his genius appear in those fabulous and incredible descriptions;'* 
the ocean has retired within itself, but some wandering streama 
linger behind, and mark the extent to which it once reached. 

Nath. Mor. 



18 



LONGINUS 



a cause of the sublime to select always the principal 
of those which offer, and be able to form them, by 
connecting them with each other, into one body. 
(For sublimity attracts the audience partly by a se- 
lection of the principal circumstances, and partly by 
crowding them together when judiciously selected.) 
Thus Sappho from all sides collects the passions 
which accompany the frenzy of love from the attend- 
ant circumstances, and nature itself ; but where 
does she show her chief excellence ? In being 
skilful enough both to choose and connect with each 
other the principal and most sublime of them — 

*^ Blest as tJC immortal gods is he^ 
The youth "tsoho fondly sits by thee 
And hears and sees thee all the while 
Softly speak and sweetly smile, 

^Twas this deprived my soul of rest^ 
And raised such tumults in my breast ; 
For while I gazed in transports tost^ 
My breath was gone^ my voice was lost. 

My bosom glowed ; the subtle flame 
Man quick thrd all my vital frame ; 
O'er my dim eyes a darkness hung^ 
My ears with hollow ?nurmurs rung, 

hi dewy damps my limbs were chilled^ 

My blood with gentle horrors thrilled ; 

My feeble pulse forgot to play^ 

I fainted^ sunk^ and died awayT i Philifs. 

I That man appears to me to be equal to the gods who sits op- 
posite to you, and near hears you sweetly speaking ; you smile too 
most enchantingly ; it was this that made my heart beat in my breast; 
for when I behold you, my voice quickly leaves me ; my tongue 
faulters; a subtle flame runs quickly through my veins; I see 
nothing with my eyes, my ears ring ; a cold sweat is poured forth ; 
a trembling seizes ray whole frame, I become paler than grass*; 
1 seem to be not far distant from death. 

* This impropriety of expression arises from our having no single 
word which expresses that sickly hue denoted by the Greek XXfe'^eTf|«. 



ON THE SbBLIME. 



Do you not admire how at the same time she seeks 
after soul, body, ears, tongue, colour, every thing, 
vanishing as if distinct from herself? and by the most 
opposite changes she chills, she burns, &he raves, 
she reasons, she is either out of her wits, or dying 
away; that no one passion may appear in her, but an 
assemblage of conflicting passions 2. All such things 
happen to lovers^ but the choice (as I said ) of the 
principal circumstances, and the uniting them toge- 
ther, has formed the sublimity of this Ode. In the 
same manner I think, in describing tempests, the 
poet selects the most terrific circumstances. Indeed 
he who composed the Poem called the Arimas- 
pians ^ thinks these verses sublime : 

*^ Ye poivers "dchat madness! how o?i ships so frail 

(Tremendous thought) can thoughtless mortals sails^ 

For stormy seas they quit the pleasing plain ^ 

Plant woods in waves^ and dwell amidst the main ; 

Far der the deep ( a trackless path J they go, 

And wander oceans in pursuit of xwe, 

No ease their hearts^ no rest their eyes can find^ 

On heaven their looks, and on the waves their mind i 

Sunk are their spirits while their arms they rear. 

And gods are wearied by their fruitless prayer 4 

It is manifest I think to every reader, that those expres- 
sions are more flowery than terrific ; but how^ does 
Homer describe this ? let one example be produced 
from many — 

2 Dacier says, the word fuvotos signifies a meeting of conjlicting 
passions. 

3 Aristeas the Proconnesian, v>'ho wi'ote on the Arimaspians, a 
Scythian people who lived far from any sea. These lines are spoken 
by one of them who wonders how men trust themselves to a ship, and 
endeavours to describe the horrors of a storm. Pearce. 

* " This is a subject of great surprize to ray mind, how men dwell 
on the waters of the sea at a distance from land ; they are some un- 
happy beings, for they endure dreadful hardships ; they have their eyes 
on the stars, their thoughts on the sea. Full often raising their hands 
to the gods they pray, sick of their situation,'^ 




20 



LONGINUS 



He bursts upon them all : 

Bursts as a wave that from the clouds impendsif 
And swdVd with tevipests on the ship descends ; 
White are the decks with foam ; the winds aloud 
Howl o'er the masts ^ and sing thro' ev'ry shroud : 
Pale^ tremblings tir'd^ the sailors freeze with fears^ 
A?id instant death on ev^ry wave appear sT ^ 



This last Aratus attempted to transfer A slender 
plank preserves them from their fate;" but he has 
made it poor and refined instead of terrible, and be- 
sides he has fixed the limits of the danger, saying — 
^* A plank wards off destruction;" but the poet does 
not once define tlie danger, but represents them as 
in a picture, always and almost on every wave, dying 
a thousand deaths ; and by forcibly joining, contrary 
to their nature, prepositions which cannot be united, 
and violently heaping them on each other y^r and 
he has ofEired a violence to his verse, expressive of 
the falling storm, and has exquisitely pourtrayed 
their suffering by the torture of his verse, and al- 
most staniped the peculiarity of their danger on the 
words t^^T, k. Just so Archilochus in the Shipwreck, 
and Demosthenes in his account of the 111 News. 

For it was evening," culling (as a person may say) 
the chief circumstances, according to their excellence 
they connected them, inserting nothing flimsy, low, 
or scholastic. For those like rubbish and chinks 
entirely disfigure those things, which; when disposed 

^ " He fell on therr, as when a wave falls on a fast-sailing ship ; ini 
petuous from the clouds, swoln by the winds; the whole vessel is co- 
vered %vith spray ; the dreadful blast roars against the mast ; the sailors 
tremble, in their srmls terrified ; for they are separated but little from 
death." — Cowper's translation of this passage is very spirited and al- 
most literal : 

" Fell as a wave by wint'ry winds upheaved, 

" Falls pond'rous on the ship ; white clings the foam 

" Around her ; in her sail shrill howls the storm, 

** And ev'ry sailor trembles at the view " 
Of thousand deaths, from which he scarce escapes. " 



Pope. 




ON THE SUBLIME. 



together, and supported by this connection with each 
other, form the sublime. 

SECTION XI. 

THERE is an excellence bordering on those 
which have been treated of, which they call Amplifi- 
cation ; when (the subjects which xve write on, or 
causes we plead^ i admitting many beginnings and 
pauses in the periods) great incidents heaped one upon 
another, continually rise by a regular ascent ; but whe- 
ther this happens in a common place, or exaggeration, 
or corroboration of arguments, or the disposition of 
actions or passions, (for there may be innun erable 
w^ays of amplification) the orator must be assured 
that none of those things can be perfect itself with- 
out the sublime, except in exciting pity 2, or making 
things appear vile. But if you should take the sub- 
lime from any of the other things which admit am- 
plification, you would separate, as it were, the soul 
from the body ; for immediately their energy loses its 
tone, and languishes when unsupported by the sub- 
lime. How the subject of the present precepts dif- 
fers from what has been just said, (for that was a cer- 
tain delineation of the chief circumstances, and bring- 
ing them together) and how the sublime, in general, 
differs from amplification, we must in a few words 
explain for the sake of perspicuity. 

SECTION XII. 

THE definition of the writers on Rhetoric does 
not please me ; Amplification is," say they, a 

1 This treatise was written both for orators and writers, as may b> 
seen from this and several other passages. 

2 — Tragicus plerumque dolet sermone pedestri. 

Telephus et Peleus cum pauper et exul uterque 

Projicit ampullas et sesquipedaiia verba, 

Si curat cor spectantis tetigisse querela." — Art or Poetrt. 



22 



LONGINGS 



form of words which clothes the subject in gran- 
deur." For this indeed can be the common defini- 
tion of sublimity, the passions and tropes, since 
those also give the subject a certain character of gran- 
deur. But those things appear to me to differ in 
this from each other, the sublime consists in eleva-^ 
tion, aii'plification in number, whence the former of- 
ten appears even in one th(;ught, but the latter always 
in a quantity and abui:dance of thoughts. Amplifica- 
tion is (to give an accurate definition) a complete 
connexion of all the circunisiances and topics con- 
tained in any thing ; strengthening the subject by 
dwelling on it ; in this differing from proof that the 
one demonstrates the object of enquiry, i * * * * 
Plato, like some sea, is most copiously spread out in 
every direction to a vast extent. Whence I think 
the Oratory addressing himself more to the passions, 
has, as is naUiral, n uch fire and passionate ardour; 
whilst the other, possessing an elevation of style and 
majestic gravity, is never cold, but has not that 
thunderini^ force. In no other way than this, as it 
seems to me, my dear Terentianus, (if I say it is per- 
mitted us. as Greeks, to know any thing of Latin 
writers) does Cicero also differ from Demosthenes 
in sublimity ; the latter generally abounds in concise 
sublimity, Cicero in diffuse; our orator, on account 
of his destroying, and as it were consuming every 
thing by hii? violence, rapidity, strength and vehe* 
mence, n^ay be compared to a hurricane or thunder- 
bolt. But Cicero, in my opinion, as some wide ex- 
tended conflagration feeds in every direction, and 
rolls along having a flame great and constant, dis- 
tributed through him in different ways, and nou- 
rished by successive supplies. But you can judge of 
» those things better than I. But the proper season 
i^for the elevated sublime of Demosthenes is in exag- 

^ This place is defectiTe ; we are supposed to have, in whatfollow% 
^ comparison of Plato with Demosthenes. 




OTf THE SUBLIME. 



25 



gerations and violent passions, and where it is alto- 
gether necessary to terrify your hearer ; hut For the 
difFubive stile where it is necessary to sooth him 2 ; 
for it is adapted to common phce arguments, and in 
general to perorations, and digressions, narrative 
and shewy pieces, descriptions of the works of na- 
ture ^, and several otlier sorts. 

SECTION XIIL 

YOU who Read his republic, cannot but know 
Plato's style, (lor I return to him i) that though he 
flows with a noiseless diffusive current, he is neverthe- 
less sublime " Who" says he, unacquamted with 
" wisdom and virtue, and always engaged in revels 
and pleasures of this sort, sink downward as is 
just, and thus stray through life. But they never 
look up to truth, or rise from their sunk condi- 
" tion, or taste solid and pure pleasure, but like 
brutes, always looking down, and bending to the 
earth and their , tables, they glut themselves with 
luxury 2 and excess, and from their passion for 
such things, kicking and butting with hoofs and 
horns of steel, they destroj^ each other on account of 
their insatiable desires/' This writer, if we will 
not neglect him, shew^s us that another way also leads 
to the sublime besides those already mentioned. 
What is its nature, and what is it ? An imitation 
and emulation of the gieal prose writers and poets of 
former days. And this object, my dear friend, we 

2 The Greek word za.ravrX.Tio'at, is a medical term, which signifies 

to " foment," or bathe with warm water, hence to sooth. 

3 This diffusive style may be used with propriety in describing the 
wonders of nature, as in Plato's Anatomy of Man, in Sec o'2» 

Nath. Mor. 

1 Hence it is abundantly evident that the person compared with the 
orator in the preceding section was Plato. — Pearce. He has also 
repeated the terra by which he characterises Plato's stile — Xsv/tca — ^i- 
yjurtti --Nath. Mor. 

2 The Greek term Xd^ra^tf^svtf; is properly applied to those a; . 
that feed to excess on grass, &c ; he considers it as highly applic*ibie 
to men who forget their noble nature, and only enjoy the pleasures of 
brutes. 



24 



LONGINUS 



should continually keep in view ; for many are in- 
spired by a spirit not their own, in the same manner 
that it is reported the Pythian prophetess, when she 
approaches the tripod, (where there is a cavity in the 
earth, which they say breathes forth a divine va- 
pour 5) being thence imoregnated by the power of the 
god, immediately delivers oracles by inspiration 4 ; 
thus from the sut3limity of the ancients some fine ef- 
fluvia are borne to the souls of those who imitate 
them, as from saered vents, by which even those 
who are not naturally subject to this divine frenzy5 
inspired, are excited by the spirit of others. Was 
Herodotus alone, a great imitator of Hoiuer? Ste- 
sichorus 5 before him was, and Archilocus, but most 
of all, Piato, who turned on himself innumerable 
rivulets from Homer's fountain ; and perhaps we 
should have occasion for examples, had not Ammo- 
nius, selecting them one by one remarked them. 
Now this proceeding is not plagiarism, but taking an 
impression from the fine moral of their fiction or 
story. 6 And it seems to me that he could not have 
forced such beauties into tenets of philosophy, and 
have often entered with him into the matter and 
phrase of poetry, had he not contended against Ho- 
mer with all his heart for the first rank, (as a young 
champion against one already admired) too eagerly 
perhaps, and defying him, in a manner, to mortal 
combat; not however without advantage: for, ac- 
cording to Hesiod, this sort of contest is good for 

3 Pearce conjectures this is a trimeter Iambic, taken from some un- 
known poet. 

* For an account of the Pythia, and the ceremonies to be observed 
in consulting the Delphic Oracle, "we refer the reader to the second 
volume of Anacharsis. 

5 His original nanae was Tisias ; the name Stesichorus was givea 
him for his invention of the LjTic Chorus. 

6 The translation, according to Pearce's text, would be, " This pro- 
ceeding is not tkeftf but (what the stiictes^ r. orals may allow) taking, 
&c. he has included dfs uiro xaXm n^uv vdthin a parenthesis. 



ON THE SUBEIME. 



25. 



men," and in truth, this contest for glory and re- 
nown is honourabl-e and deserving of victory, in 
which it is not inglorious even to be defeated by those 
who went before us. 

SECTION XIV. 

IT is right therefore that we also, when we ear- 
nestly undertake any thing which requires sublimity, 
should figure to our minds how Homer, suppose, 
would express this same thing, or how Plato or De- 
mosthenes would dress it in sublimity, or Thucy- 
dides in history. For those celebrated persons occur- 
ring to us for imitation, and in a manner shining as 
a light before us, will raise our souls to the fancied 
measure. But still more, if we would represent this 
to our minds, how would Homer, w^re he pre- 
sent, listen to this expression of mine, or Demos- 
thenes ; or how would they be affected by it? For 
it is in truth a great excitement to constitute such a 
theatre and tribunal for our compositions, and to 
fancy we must submit to an examination of our writ- 
ings before such heroes at once our judges and wit- 
nesses ; but it is a greater motive to animate than 
those, if you add, " What will future ages think of 
me who write thus?" And here, if any one appre- 
hends that he could not express any thing which 
might outlive his own life and age, it is necessary that 
the conceptions of his mind, imperfect and abortive 
jjihould as it were miscarry, not lasting till the time 
when posterity may applaud him. 

SECTION XV. 

BESIDES those, Visions (for thus some writers 
call the farming of images in the mind) are, my young 
fricnrl, very productive of sublimity, elevation, and 
energy ; in general every tiiought of the mind, how- 
ever it occurs, producing an expression, is called a 

D 



26 



LONaiNUS 



vision, but now with writers of the present day, the 
force of the term is, " When you seem through en- 
thusiasm and passion to see the things you are de- 
scribing, and place them before the eyes of your 
hearers." That a rhetorical vision means one thing, 
a poetic another, could not have escaped you ; nor 
that surprise is the end of the poetic, perspicuity of 
the rhetorical ; but both equally aim at this, viz. ex- 
citement. 

Pity thy offsprings mother ^ nor provoke 

Those vengeful furies to torment thy son. 

What horrid sights ! how glare their bloody eyes I 

How twisting snakes curl round their venom^d heads! 

In deadly wrath the hissing monsters rise^ 

Forward they springs dart out^ and leap around meA 

And again, 

Alas I she'll kill me I—whither shall I fly I — 

Here the poet himself saw the furies, and ahiiost 
compelled his audience to see what he had seen in 
imagination. Euripides has laboured most to express 
in his tragedies those two passions, love and mad- 
ness, and has been more fortunate in those than any 
others ; not that he wants boldnes to attempt others ; 
though he is not naturally sublime, yet he has in 
many instances forced his nature to become tragic 
and lofty, and in each attempt at sublimity (as the 
poet says), 

JLasKd by his tail, his heaving sides incite 
His courage, and provoke himself for fight. 2 

1 " O mother, I beseech you, do not excite against me those virgins 
with blood stained eyes, and snake- encircled hair, forthey, they arc 
near, and dart on me.''' 

2 " He lashes with his tail his sides and loins on both sides, and ex^ 
•ites himself to fight.'' 



ON THE SUBLIME. 



Thus Sol, giving the reins to Phaeton, says, 

" Drive on^ but cautious shun the Libyan air ; 
That hot unmoisterHd region of the sky 
Will drop Thy chariot'' — 3 

Then a little after— 

Thence let the Pleiads point thy wary course^ 
Thus spoke the God* TK impatient youthy with haste^ 
Snatches the reins, and vaults into the seat. 
He starts : the coursers, whom the lashing whip 
Excites, outstrip the winds, and whirl the car 
High thrd the airy void. Behind the sire^ 
Borne on his planetary steed, pursues. 
With eye intent, and warns him with his voice ; 
Drive there! — now here! — here! turn the chariot, 
here ! 4 

Could you not say, that the soul of the writer 
mounted the chariot with him^ and, exposed to the 
same danger, accompanied the horses in their flight ; 
for it could never have imagined such things unless 
it were hurried along in the same career with those 
heavenly actions. He has ako similar passages in his 
Cassandra — 

But 0 / warlike Trojans'' — 

iEschylus has boldly conceived visions, truly heroic 
(as his tragedy the Seven Captains against Thebes," 
has, 

D 2 

3 " Drive on, not entering the Libyan air, for not possessing a 
moist temperature, it will let four chariot fall.*' 

4 " Drive, directing your course to the seven Pleiades. So far 
" having listened, the youth snatched the reins ; and whipping the 
** sides of his winged horses, he let them fly with the chariot* ; but 
*' they flew to the convex heaven ; and his father mounted on the back 
** of Sirius, rode advising his son : drive here ; turn the chariot 
** there ; and here." 

♦ Pearce puts the comma after ^n^tipo^cav, and translates as I have 
done ; others suppose c;^»j/(*«t«v put by meton : for horses : whilst 
some make him strike the chariot, to give a sort of signal to thJi 
horses." 



28 



LONG IK us 



The seven ^ a warlike leader each in chief. 
Stood round, and o'er the brazen shield they slew 
A sullen bull; then plunging deep their hands 
Into the foaming gore, mth oaths invoked 
Mars and Enyo, and blood-thirsting Terror'' — ^ 

without the least remorse mutually binding them* 
selves by an oath to meet destruction), yet he has some- 
times produced rude and as it were roughs and un- 
polished thoughts ; however Euripides, through emu- 
lation, forces himself to appr oach even those dangers. 
Thus in -^schylus, the palace of Lycurgus is won- 
derfully moved by the presence of Bacchus. The 
house is inspired, the very roof feels the influence of 
Bacchus." Euripides has expressed the very same 
thought in another manner, softening it, " The whole 
mountain resounds with Bacchus." But how sub- 
limely Sophocles has formed an image of CEdipu* 
dying and burying himself in that prodigious tempest : 
and at the departure of the Greeks, of Achilles appear- 
ing on his tomb to them preparing for their return. 
Which vision I know not if any one has expressed in 
more lively colours than Simonides ; but it is impossi- 
ble to produce all the instances. To return to my sub* 
ject : — Those images used by the poets have, as I said, 
an excess quite fabulous, and far exceeding the bounds 
of credibility ; but truth and probability are the chief 
beauty of oratorical vision. Ora^or/ca/ digressions? are 

5 " Seven heroes, the bold leaders of armies, killing a bull on a 
" black shield,* and dipping their hands in the bull's blood, swor« 
hj MarS; Bellona, and blood thirsting Terror." 

^ Literally " uncombed," which to an English reader may not be 
Tery intelligible in its present application: the meaning seems to be, 
exhibiting all the marks of natural strength and vigour, unassisted 
by any artificial ornaments, like Juvenal's young soldier, depending 
solely on his own intrinsic merit to attract attention. " Caput in^ 
iactum buxo,*' <^c, 

7 The dxvrue'ia is here called iru^aZn^iSi as in a subsequent part of 
the Section XrifAfAa. In oratory it is ridiculous to use that fabulous 
excess which may be allowed in poetry. Nath. M©r 

* Nigro loro alligatura — as in Homer fetfystuf, ^!X«v^e«r«y, " Nigr» 
aianubrio." 




ON THE SUBLIME. 



29 



violent and absurd, when their form of expression is 
poetic and fabulous, and falls into impossibilities ; yet 
even in the present day, our able orators (heaven make 
them such) behold their furies as well as the tragic 
writers, and those fine fellows cannot learn this, that 
Orestes, when saying, 

" Leave ine^ you are one of my furies^ 

You catch me by the waist to throxD me into TartaruSy^ 

sees this vision because he is mad. What is the use 
then of an oratorical vision ? To add perhaps what 
is strong and passionate to our words, but when 
mixed with arguments drawn from the facts, it not 
only persuades the hearer, but captivates him. 
And," says Demosthenes, if any one should on 
a sudden hear a cry before the tribunal, and then 
some one should say, the prisons are burst open, and 
the prisoners are escaping, there is no one either 
" young or old could be so careless a* not to give as- 
sistance as far as he is able; but if any one should 
come forward and say, this is the man who let them 
" go. he would immediately perish without a hearing." 
Thus also Hyperides, bein^ accused, because he pas- 
sed a decree that the slaves, after the defeat, should 
be made free. It was not the orator but the bat- 
tle of Cheronaea that proposed this decree." For 
with an argument drawn from the fact the orator has 
introduced an image, wherefore he has exceeded the 
bounds of persuasion by this circumstance. For by 
some natural impulse in all things of this nature we 
constantly attend to what is most forcible, whence 
we are drawn away from that which barely explains, 
to that which astonishes by its images, surrounded 
by the blaze of which the matter of fact is concealed* 
And this we suffer very naturally ; for two things be- 

D 3 



LONGINUS 



ing placed together, that which is strongest attracts 
to itself the entire virtue of the other. 

These observations will be sufficient about the sub- 
lime in thought, which proceeds from greatness of 
soul, or imitation, or vision. 

SECTION XVI. 

HERE is the place which is in due order assign- 
ed to figures; for these, if they are disposed in the 
maner they ought, would constitute, as I said, no or- 
dinary part of sublimity; but since it w^ould be a 
tedious or rather an infinite labour to describe them 
all accurately at present, we will run over a few of 
them, as many as conduce to sublimity, for the sake 
of confirming my assertion. Demosthenes brings 
forward a proof of his good administration ; what was 
the natural i way of managing this ? " You did not 

act wvongy Athenians^ who undertook the contest 
" for the liberty of Greece ? You have domestic ex- 

amples of this conduct ; for those who fought at 

Marathon did not act wrong, nor those at Sala- 
^* mis, nor those at Plataea." But when (as if sud- 
denly inspired by a god, and possessed as it were by 
the spirit of Phoebus) he broke into that oath by the 
champions of Greece, " You have not done wrong; 
no ; I swear by those w^ho w ere foremost in the dan- 
ger at Marathon," he appears by this single figura- 
tive oath, which I here call an Apostrophe, to have 
deified their ancestors, (shewing they ought swear 
by those who died in this glorious manner as by 
gods) and to have inspired his judges with the gener- 
ous principles of those who were foremost in the dan- 
^ ger there, to have changed the nature of proof into 
^ anexcessof sublimity and passion, and a just confidence 
in strange and uncommon oaths, and to have infused 
into the souls of his hearers his words as the balm 

^ Natural, xinaided by tfee aitifice of figures. 





ON THE SUBLIME. 



and relief of their distress; so that they, elated by 
his praises, were taught not to be more dispirited 2 
by their engagement with Philip, than by their vic- 
tories at Marathon and yalamis ; by all which things 
he forcibly draws the audience to his party, with thi.s 
figure: — They say, indeed, that the seed of this oath 
is to be found in Eupolis, 

No I by my labours in that glorious ^field^ 
Their joy shall not produce my discontent, 3? 

vBut the grandeur is not in having any person swear 
on any occasion, but in the place, the manner, the 
time, and motive; but in Eupolis there is nothing 
but a mere oath, and still more, addressed to the 
Athenians whilst successful and not requiring con- 
solation ; and further the poet did not swear, deify- 
inor [lis heroes, that he may engraft in his audience 
sentiments worthy of their virtue, but wandered from 
those v^ ho exposed themselves to danger to an ina- 
nimate object — the battle : — But in Demosthenes the 
oath has to do with the vanquished, that Cheronaea 
may no longer appear a misfortune to the Athenians; 
and it is, as I said, at once, a proof that they did not 
act wrong, an example, an oath calculated to gain 
credit, an encomium, an exhortation. And since it 
might have been objected to the orator, You who 
conducted our administration speak of a defeat, and 
then swear by victories ; ' he therefore, in what fol- 
lows, measures 4 and cautiously brings forth his 
words, teaching us that even in the greatest excite- 
ment it is necessary to be sober. By those of our 

2 Mtym ^^oHif, ** to have high spirits, to be elated, Horn : — Hx^rrtf 
^^mn to be dispirited. 

3 For I swear by my battle at Marathon, no one with joy shall 
grieve my heart. 

♦ Some translate, »«vfl»i?«/ ; " he gives rules to future writers 
his example is the rule by which all future orators ought to direct their 
e-onduct. 



5S 



LGKaiNUS 



" ancestors'* said he, who exposed themselves to 
danger at Marathon, and those who were in the 
naval engagement at Salamis, and Artemisium, 
" and those who stood at Plataea in battle array 
he never said, who conquered,'' but industriously 
suppressed the mention of the event, since it was for- 
tunate, and contrary to that at Cheronaea ; and 
therefore anticipating his audience, he subjoins, " All 
of whom iEschines, the city buried at the public ex- 
pence, and not those alone who were victorious." 

SECTION XVII. 

IT is not proper in this place to omit one of my 
observations (it shall be a very brief one) that figures 
naturally both assist sublimity and are in turn as- 
sisted by it. Where and how I shall tell you — In- 
sidiously 1 to treat of all things by figures is pecu- 
liarly suspicious, and brings with it the suspicion of 
deceit, treachery, and fraud; and especially when we 
are pleading before an absolute judge, (but most of all 
before tyrants, kings, and leaders with absolute au- 
thority) for he is immediately indignant if, like a 
silly child, he is baffled by the little figures of an 
artful orator ; and considering the deception as an in- 
sult to hiinsdl", he soirietimes gets qui-e furious, and 
even though he should controul his anger, yet he en- 
tirely opposes himself to the conviction of your ar- 
guments ; wherefore a figure then seems best when 
the fact of its being a figure is concealed. Sublimity 
and pathos therefore is a great remedy and relief 
against the suspicion which attends figure-making; 
and the art in applying them, covered over in a man- 
ner by beauties 2 and sublimity, is entirely concealed, 
and escapes all suspicion; the former instance is a 

1 Such seems to be the force of the Greek verb. 

* The present reading is supposed to be incorrect ; ^a6ift^ is pro- 
posed, which agrees better with the sense, and the v-^^ot »«/ 
above. 



ON THE SUBLIME. 



33 



sufficient example, " By those at Marathon for 
how did the orator here conceal the figure ? plainly 
by its very lustre. For I may nearly say, as weak 
lights are obscured, surrounded by the dazzling rays 
of the sun ; thus sublimity, poured round on every 
side, overshadows the artifices of rhetoric. Some- 
thing not very unlike this, perhaps, happens in paint- 
ing; for though the light and shade of colours lie 
near each other on the same ground, yet the light 
first strikes the eye, and not only appears projecting 
but much nearer. Thus too in writings, the sublime 
and pathetic being nearer our souls on account of 
some natural connexion and their superior splendor, 
are always more conspicuous than figures, conceal 
their art, and keep them as it were veiled from our 
view. 

SECTION XVIIL 

BUT what shall we say of Interrogations and 
Questions ? Does not Demosthenes make his discourses 
much more nervous and vehement by this sort of 
figure, Would you, tell me any of you, go about 
and ask each other, is there any thing new ? For 
what can be more new than that a man of Macedoa 
" should attack Greece ? Is Philip dead ? No ; but 
" he is very sick ; but what difference does it make to 
*^ you ? For though he should suffer any mishap, you 
" will soon raise another Philip and again, " Let us 
sail to Macedon ; but where shall we land ? some one 
may ask ; the war itself will find out Philip's weak 
parts.'' This, if simply expressed, would be in every 
respect too mean for the occasion. But now the en- 
thusiastic spirit and rapidity of the question and an- 
swer, and the meeting his own objections as if they 
came from another, have not only rendered that 
which was spoken more sublime by the help of this 
figure, but more credible ; for the pathetic then pre- 
vails niost when the speaker seems not to study but 



LONGINUS 



the occarion to produce it; but this questioning and 
answering oneself, resemble a passion produced at 
the moment. For, as in general, those who are 
questioned by others, suddenly excited, forcibly and 
truly answer what is asked ; thus the figure of ques- 
tion and answer, leading the audience to suppose 
«ach of those well considered expressions were started 
and spoken extempore^ deceives them. Still fur- 
ther, (for this passage of Herodotus, is believed to 
be one of his most sublime) if thus 3 ^ * * * * 

SECTION XIX. 

THE sentences drop down unfettered, and are 
in a manner poured forth, anticipating even the 
speaker himself. And joining their shields," says 
Xenophon, they were pushed, they fought, they 
slew, they died i;" and those words of Eurylochus. — 

We went, Ulysses, (such was thy command) 
Thrd the lone thicket and the desert land ; 
A palace in a woody vale we found. 
Brown with dark forests, and with shades around. 2'* 

For words thus severed from each other, and never- 
theless urged on, exhibit the marks of an anxiety, 
at once retarding and accelerating the discourse. 
Such was the force of the poet's Asyndetons. 

^ Here again we have to lament the efFecis of lime ; this is the 
fourth mutilated passage. 

^ Sallust abounds with examples of this figure : we have the same 
lively description of a battle in the Jugurthan war, " Turn spectacu- 
lum horrhilie in campis patentibus : sequh occidi^ capi equi 

aique viri afflicti ; ac multi, vulneinbus acceptis neque fugere jyosse 
neque quietem jiati ; niti modoj statim concidere ; jwstremo omniay 
qua visus erat, constrata telis, armis^ caddveribuSf et inter ea humus 
infecta sanguine 

2" We went, as ypu ordered, illustrious Ulysses, through the thickets ; 
we found in the vale, a well bnilt splendid mansion," 




ON THE SUBLIME. 



SECTION XX. 

BUT the collecting of fiofures together is ac- 
customed to excite most effectually, when two or 
three, combined as it were in united bands^, jointly 
procure ^ for each other strength, efficacy, and 
beauty ; such as those Asyndetons against Midias 
mixed with repetitions and lively descriptions. For 
" he who strikes another, can do many aggravating 
" things by his gesture, look, and voice; some of 
" which the sufferer cannot express to any one," then 
that he may not continue to move in the same track, 
(for in order there is tranquillity, but in disorder pas- 
sion, since it is the transport and emotion of the soul) 
he instantly passes to other asyndetons and repetitions 
" in his gesture, eye, and voice, when w^ith inso« 
lence, when with hatred, when with blows, when 
on the cheek," the orator by those expressions does 
the very thing the offender did ; viz. strike the im^a- 
gination of his judges by this violent and continued 
attack ; then afterwards making a second charge, 
as tempests succeed each other^ he says ; when 
with thumps, when on the cheek, those things rouse, 
" those thinors excite men unaccustomed to be insulted : 
" no one in relating them can place their enormity 
^' sufficiently before you ;" he thus, by continued vari^ 
ation, fully preserves the natural force of the repeti- 
tions and asyndetons ; thus with him order seems 
disorder, and on the other hand his disorder has 
an air of regularity. 

SECTION XXL 

COME now, if you choose, add the copulatives, 
as those who imitate Isocrates do ; and this I 
must not omit, that he who strikes another ciiii (!o 

1 For " tvfifAo^im'' — consult Potter's Antiquities. 

2 When many persons on ?iome con^'ivial occasion club, th6 '«um 
collected from «ach individual of the party, is called his ig«v#y. 



36 



LONGINUS 



many aggravating things, first, by his gesture, then 
by his eye, then by his very voice and you will 
perceive, by thus altering through the whole, that 
the rapidity t snd roughness of the pathetic, if you 
render it smooth and level by copulatives, falls 
without point and is soon extinguished. For as, if 
a person would bind the limbs of racers, he takes 
away their active motion, thus the pathetic disdains 
to be fettered by copulas and other additions ; for 
they destroy * the freedom of its motion, and that 
appearance of being as it were discharged from an 
engine, 

SECTION XXIL 

WE must miderstand that hyperbalons too, are 
of the same description. A71 hyjperhaton is an ar- 
rangement of words or thoughts removed from 
' their natural order, and as it were the true distin- 
guishing mark of a vehement passion. For as those 
who are in reality actuated by wrath, fear, indigna- 
tion, or who through jealousy or any other passion, 
(for the passionsare many, nay infinite, it is impossible 
to tell how many they are) fluctuate here and there, 
after premising one thing often pass to another, in- 
serting some things in the midst quite unexpectedly, 
then return again to what they commenced w^ith, and 
suddenly tossed from one thing to another by the 
violence of their emotion, as by some unsteady blast 
change their expressions, thoughts, and arrangement, 
from the natural order by innumerable windings. 1 
Thus with the best writers, by hyperbatons imitation 
approaches the workings of naturej(for art is then 
perfect when it seems to be nature, but nature is on 
the other hand most successful, when it contains 

t That rapidity which he describes in the 19th Section; as iXiyUy 

* 1 have translated from a conjectural reading KTrcXvacri, 
1 ITiere is an evittein t cntiisicn in this sentence, designed, as scm 
suppose, to illustrate that figure which he wished to recoiBinend. 



ON THE SUBLIME. 



57 



secret art,) as in Herodotus, Dionysiiis of 
Phocasa says ; Now are your affairs in the 
" most critical situation 2, lonians, whether you 
shall be freemen or slaves, nay, even fugitive^ 
slaves ! Now if you wish to undergo hardship you 
will for the present have some trouble ; but you will 
" be able to overcome the enemy.'' Here the arrange- 
ment should be — lonians, now is the favourable 
moment for you to undergo hardship, for our affairs 
are in the most critical situation;" but he transposed 
the salutation^ " lonians," for through fear he in- 
stantly commences, and does not atall 4first address 
his audience, from the apprehension he was under ; 
he next inverted the order of the thoughts; for 
before he tells them they must use exertions, (for this 
is what he advises) he explains the reason why it was 
necessary to use exertions, saying, our affairs are 
in the most critical situation," that he may not ap- 
pear to utter a premeditated address, but what neces- 
sity forced from him. Thucydides is still more skilful 
in tearing asunder by hyberbatons, those things which 
are by nature entirely united and inseparable. De- 
mosthenes does not indulge himself in them so much ; 
yet he is more discreetly liberal 5 of this kind of 
figure than any other writer ; and by his skill in 
transposing, has the appearance of much vehemence, 
and even of speaking extempore^ and besides draws 
his audience into all the danger of long hyperba- 
tons ; for often suspending the thought which he 
began to express, and in the mean time, (as if 

E 

2 Literally on the point of a razor this phrase is borrowed from 
Homers Iliad ic — Nvj/ yos,^ §ii TrdvTifra-tv itcI W'va.To'A ccKf^i^^, 

^ Having revolted, and taken up arms against Persia. 

4 Lucian, in his Timon, has used »^x^^ adverbially — oriTTi^ s^S; «r>jr, 
ao^nv iu^ets uvrhi — when Mercury converses Vviih Plutus, 

^ Smith has in this translation given the full meaning of xuratco^m 
as Pearce understood it. — Boileau applies the term to Thucydides, 
and understands it in a bad sense, " surfeits his reader with his profu- 
sion." 



S8 



LONGINUS 



going into quite a different and unlike arrangement,) 
heaping on each other many, even irrelevant in- 
cidents, causing in his audience an apprehension 
of the entire dissokition >if his argument, and com- 
peUing them, through anxiety, to feel the danger of 
the person addressing them ; then to their surprise, 
after a long interval, seasonably introducing at the 
conclusion of his address, that which was so long and 
eagerly expected ; he makes a much more lasting 
impression by this bold and hazardous use of hy- 
perbatons. But we must forbear giving examples 
on account of their abundance. 

SECTION XXIIL 

THOSE Figures which are called Polyptotes, 
Collections, Changes, and Gradations, are very 
nergetic as you well know, and are useful for orna- 
ment, sublimity, and passion. But how do changes 
of cases, tenses, persons, numbers, and genders, adorn 
and elevate the style? I assert indeed, that not only 
these numbers are an ornament, as many as being 
singular in their form, are, on observation, found to 
be plural in vigour and efficacy— 

" Along the shores an endless crowd appear^ 

Whose noise and din and shouts confomid the ear^y 

But this is most worthy of remark, that sometimes 
plurals meet the ear, more magnificent and grand in 
appearance, by the copiousness of number; such are 
these verses of Sophocles in his CEdipus — 

" Oh ! Nuptials, Nuptials I 
You Jirst produc'd^ and since our fatal birth^ 
Have mix'd our bloody and all our race confounded ; 
Blended in horrid and incestuous bonds, 
See J Fathers, brothers, sons, a dire alliance I 

1 Immediately an immense crowd furiously rush, and standing oa 
the shore, shout." 



ON THE SUBLIME. 



S9 



See ! sisters^ xvhes and inothcrs ! and all the names 
That e*er from hist or incest could arise.'' 

For all those expressions are but one name for 
CEdipus on one hand, on the other Jocasta. But 
the number spread into plurals, multiplied even 
his misfortunes ; like this is the following instance 
of Pleonasm — 

Then Hectors and Sarpedons issued forth*'' 

And this expression of Plato about the Athenians, 
which we cited in another place " for neither Pelopses 
nor Cadmuses, nor ^gyptuses, nor Danauses, nor 
many others barbarous in their descent, dwell with 
" us ; but we, entirely Grecians, having no mixture of 
" barbarian blood, dwell," &c. For things naturally 
excite in the hearers a greater opinion of their sub- 
limity, when words are thus heaped in crowds on 
each other. But you must not attempt this in any- 
other species of writing than that in which the sub- 
ject admits amplification, enlargement, exaggeration, 
or passion, one or more of them ; since to hang 
your bells ^ on every occasion is highly pedantic. 

SECTION XXIV. 

" BUT on the contrary, those which from plurals 
are reduced to the contracted form of singulars, have 
sometimes the greatest appearance of sublimity. 
Then" said he, all Peloponnesus w^as rent into fac- 

E 2 

2 Not the change of a singular into a plural, but many plurals 
heaped together, ay«X^^6v iTtiffmrih^i^m as he afterwards explains 
it. 

3 The ra«taphor is borrowed from a custom among the ancients, 
who at public games and concourses were used to hang little bells 
{^KutuvKs) on the bridles and trapping of their horses, that their con- 
tinual chiming might add pomp to the solemnity. — Smith, 



40 



LONGINUS. 



tions. Aud^^ sa^s Herodotus 9 "when Phrynicus was 
« representing * his tragedy called the Capture of 
Miletus, the whole theatre was melted into tears" 
for the change of the number from what is divided 
among many to what is united into one, has more 
apparent vigour. But the cause of the beauty is, I 
think, the same in both; for when words are singu- 
lar, to make them plural is the mark of a speaker 
unexpectedly affected ; and when there are plurals, to 
collect them into a sounding singular, on account of 
the contrary change, is a thing equally unexpected. 

SECTION XXV. 

WHEN you introduce things past as happening 
and present, it is no longer a narration, but an ac- 
tion happening before the eyes of your readers. 

But" says Xenophon " some one falling under 
" Cyrus' horse and trodden under foot, strikes with his 

sw ord the belly of the horse ; he, plunging with pain, 

throws Cyrus, and he falls to the ground." Thucy- 
dides uses this figure in many instances. 

SECTION XXVL 

A Change of persons equally sets the thing before 
our eyes, and often makes the audience fancy them- 
selves in the midst of the danger — 

" No force coidd vanquish them thou would^st have 
thought 

No toil fatigue^ so furiously they fought^ 
And Aratus^ — 

* in the Greek ^/^«|avT/, "docenti." 

" Vel qui prretextas vel qui docuere togatas— " 

Art of Poetry. 

1 You would say that they unwearied, unfatigued, met each other 
in the war — so ardently they fought." 




ON THE SUBLIME. 



41 



O put not thou to sea in that sad montJfi*^ 

Thus likewise Herodotus you will sail upwards 
" from the city Elephantina, and then you will arrive 
on a level coast, — but having passedthis place, again 
embarking in another vessel, you will sail for two 
" days, and you vvill then arrive at a great city w^hose 
name is Meroe." You see my friend, how seizing 
on your imagination he conducts it through those 
places, making your hearing sight ; all such passages 
directed to the hearers themselves, place them in the 
midst of the things that are passing. And when you 
address your discourse, not to ail in general, but to 
feome one in particular 5 as— 

You could not see so Jierce Tijdides rag^d^ 
Whether for' Greece or Ilion he enga^d^'' 

You will render the reader roused by this address to 
himself, m.ore impassioned, more attentive, and full 
of anxious impatience^. 

SECTION XXVIL 

SOMETIMES too, when a writer is speaking 
of some person, hurried suddenly away, he is trans- 
formed into that very person. And such a figure is 
the powerful effect of passion— 

iSTbto Hector^ mth loud voice renewed their toils y 
Bad them assault the ships cmd leave the spoils 5 
But "whom I Jirtd at distance from the fleets 
He from this vengeful arm his death shall meetiJ^ 

E 3 

2 You should not be encompassed by the sea in that month.'* 

3 You could not distinguish amongst which the son of Tydeus was. 

4 Virgil's 5d Georgic is full of thisiigure, *' Nec tibicura canum 
fuerit postrema : 

1 But Hector encouraged the Trojans, shouting loudly, to rush on 
the ships, and leave the bloody spoils. Whomsoever I shall find 
willingly remain apart from the ships, there will I contrive his death. 




42 



LOKGINUS 



Thus the Poet took the narrative on himself as 
suited to him, but without any previous notice, gives 
the abrupt threat to his angry leader. It would 
have been cold if he had put in, " thus Hector 
spoke, and thus but here tSie transition anticipated 
him intending to make it. Wherefore we must use 
this figure when the exigency of the time does not 
allow the writer to delay, but compels him to pass 
at once from person to person. Thus in Hecataeus 
— But Ceyx, troubled at those things-, immedi- 

ately ordered the Heraclidae to depart — for I am 
" no longer able to assist you ; therefore that you may 

not yourselves be ruined, and bring destruction on 
" me, depart to some other people." Demosthenes, in 
quite a different manner, has introduced againi>t 
Aristogiton this variety of persons, with passion and 
volubility. ''And shall none of you be found filled with 

anger and indignation at the violent actions of this 

filthy and impudent wretch ? who — thou vilest of 
'' mankind when the liberty of speaking was prevented, 
" not by bars or gates, which, perhaps, some one could 

privately open" — before he finished the thought, 
quickly changing, and through the violence of his 
passion almost tearing a word 3 into two persons— 
*' Who — thou most vile !" then turning to some 
other object, his addres to Aristogiton, and appear- 
ing to leave him, through the heat of passion he 
brings it back on him with greater force. ^ — So Pe- 
nelope — 

The lordly suitors send !— hut *why miist you 
Bring banefid mandates from thai odious crew ? 

2 The orders of Eurystheus to expel the Heraclidae from his do- 
minions. 

3 The word h. 

4 I have followed Pearce in this translation ; another is proposed by 
Mor. Then turning his discourse from his audience to Aristogiton, and 
seeming to have lost the thread of it, he however by his passion re- 
covers it again with much more force ; as he says in the 22d Section, 



ON THE SIjBLIME. 



43 



JV/uU ! must the faithful servants of my Lord 
Forego their tasks for them to cromi the board ! 
I scorn their love^ and I detest their sight ; 
And may they share their last of feasts to night ? 
Why thusy ungenerous men^ devour my son F 
Why riot thus till he be quite undone P 
Heedless of him^ yet timely hence retire^ 
And fear the vengeance of his awfid site. 
Did not your fathers oft his might commend P 
And children you, the ti'ond'rous tale atte?id P 
That inju/d hero you returned may see. 
Think "jchat he was^ and dread vchat he may be, ^ 

SECTION XXVIII. 

NO body, I think, can deny that a Periphrasis is a 
cause of sublimity. For as in music, the principal 
note is rendered more sweet by the divisions on 
it 1, thus Periphrasis harmonizes with propriety of 
expression, and sounding in unison, adds to its beau- 
ty, especially if there be nothing in it jarring or 
discordant, but delicately tempered. Plato is a suffi- 
cient example of this in the commencement of his 
Funeral Oration. " They indeed possess the honours 
" due to thein, which having obtained, they make the 
"fatal voyage, conducted on their way in public by 

the city, in private each by his own relations;" he 
thus calls death " the fatal voyage," and the obtain- 
ing the funeral rites, " a public conducting of them 
by their country." Has he with such expressions 
but slightly exalted the thought, v»'hich taking in its 
rude and naked state he has modulated by his man- 

5 Why, herald, have those lordiy suitors sent you ? is it to tell the 
servants of Ulysses to discontinue their employments and carefully 
dress their banquet for them ? O that they may sup here now for the 
last time, no longer soliciting marriage, nor remaining on any other pre- 
tence ; who— assembled together, you consume the substance of the 
brave Telemachus, nor have you, when children, heard from your fa- 
thers what sort Ulysses was. 

1 These w^ords (pSoyyoi ^ot^di(pajv6i, signify nothing else but parts 
depending on the principal sound {okv^ios (pfoyyos): and nothing can 
agree better with the Periphrasis wiiich is only a collection of words 
answering to the proper word (t>j zvoiQ^oyla), — Boil. 



44 



LONGINUS 



nerof expression, spreading round it the melody of 
his Periphrasis to give it harmony ? Xerjophon also 
says, You consider labour the guide to a happy 
" life, and you have lodged in your breasts a posses- 
*'sion the noblest and most befitting soldiers ; you re- 
'^joice in commendation more than any other re ^'ard." 
Instead of, you wish to labour/' by saying, you 
make labour your guide to a happy life/' and enlarg- 
ing some other words in the same manner, he has 
included in his encomium a subiime thought. This 
passage of Herodotus is quite inimitable. " The 
goddess sent the female disease into those Scythians 
who pillaged her temple."^ 

SECTION XXIX. 

A Periphrasis is of more advantage th.an any 
other figure, unless it be used by any one immoder- 
ately ; for then it immediately becomes feeble and sa- 
vours of dullness and stupidity, Whence some critics 
deride even Plato (for he is fond of using this figure, 
and in some instances improperly) for saying in 
his laws, " They must not allow either the wealth of 
gold or silver to settle and dwell in the city^ /' so that 
i!t] said they, he would prevent them from keeping- 
sheep and oxen, it is manifest he would have said — 

the wealth of sheep and oxen but let it suffice, my 
dear friend Terentianus, to have briefly spoken 
thus far about the use of figures to Jvrm the sublime, 
by way of digression^, for all those things make writ- 

2 The beauty of this periphrasis, which Longinus so highly recom- . 
mends, appears not at present. Commentators indeed have laboured 
hard to discover what this disease was, and abundance of remarks, 
learned and curious to be sure, have been made upon it. It is a 
pity Madame Dacier never undertook it, for if the ladies cannot ct- 
plain it, I fancy no body ever wdll. — Smith. 

1 The word trkSros, does not signify ivealth, but the god of wealth, 
and alludes to the custom of erecting golden statues to the god — thus 
Weiske defends Plato. 

2 l» 'zru^iv^riKVji — '* i. e. ^ra^sv^sri^^yj" as if he said — I have just 
added those few observations on the use of some figures, being una- 
ble to treat of them more at large for the reason assigned in Sect, ifj, 

iTTil TO TTcivTOl dlCCK^l^Sy TTOXv i^yOV h TO) TU^OVTh dTfl* 

^lo^iCToy* — MoR. 



ON THE SUBLIME. 



45 



ings more lively and pathetic. Now the pathetic 
partakes as much of sublimity as moral writing does 
of pleasure. ^ 

SECTION XXX. 

SINCE the sentiments and language of composi- 
tions are generally best explained by each other, 
come let us in the next place consider if any thing 
still remains to be said about the diction. It "ii^oiild 
be siiperfltwiis to say^ that a selection of masterly and 
splendid terms wonderfully gains on and soothes the 
audience : and that it is the principal study of all 
orators and writers, as it makes sublimity, beauty, so- 
lemnity, weight, force and strength, and if there be 
any thing else, spread such beauties in writings as 
ajpjpear in rich pictures, i and gives, as it were, a kind 
of vocal life to things. / fear^ I say^ lest it should 
be superfluous to tell all this to those who must know 
it ; fine words are, in truth, the peculiar light of our 
thoughts. To have them swoln is not necessary in 
every instance ; since to dress low and trifling sub- 
jects in great and lofty expressions, would appear 
just as if any one should dress an infant in an enor- 
mous mask ; but in poetry * * ^ ^ * 

SECTION XXXL 

* * * THIS expression of Anacreon is very vulgar, 
but very natural, I no longer turn me to Thrace," 
Thus too that celebrated expression of Theopompus, 
as it corresponds to the sense, appears to me to be 
most significant ; yet Cecilius censures it, I know 
not why. Philip," says he, knew well how to 
swallow any thing when necessity obliged." A vul- 
gar expression is sometimes much more significant 

3 See the conclusion of Section 8, and the passage from Cicer§> 
quoted by Pearce. 

1 Ut pictura, poesis. — Art of Poetry. 



46 



X.ONG1NUS 



than the most ornamental ; for what is borrowed 
from common life is immediately understood, and 
that which is familiar is sooner credited; therefore 
the expression to swallow any thing when neces- 
sity obliged him," is most happily applied to him, 
who endures all foul and shameful things patiently, 
nay, even with pleasure, to promote his ambition. 
Of the same description are these expressions of 
Herodotus: Cleomenes," says he, seized with 
*^ madness cut his skin into pieces with a dagger, un- 

til tearing himself open, he destroys himself;" and 
" Pythes continued to fight in the ship until he was 

hacked to pieces." Those expressions approach i 
nearly to vulgar, but are not vulgar in their signifi- 
cation. 

SECTION XXXIL 

AS to a multitude of metaphors, Cecilius seems 
to agree with those who establish it as a rule, that 
two, or three at most, should be placed together. For 
Demosthenes is the standard in this also ; and the 
time to use them is, when the passions rush on like 
a torrent, and sweep with them a heap of metaphors, 
as a thing unavoidable. Those v/icked, accursed 
and cringing traitors," said he, who mangled 
*^ each his own country, and gave up with indif- 
ference their liberty formerly to Philip, now to 
Alexander; measuring their happiness by their 
*^ belly, and every thing most vile ; but destroying 
their liberty, and the proud boast of having no 
master, which, with the former Greeks, was the 
rule and standard of their felicity." Here the 
indignation of the orator against the traitors con- 
ceals the number of his metaphors. Wherefore 
Aristotle and Theophrastus say, that some such ex- 
pressions as these, soften bold metaphors. " If I 
may so express myself," and ''as it were," and '' if 
I may be allowed the expression," and " to speak 

1 In the Greek " sra^a^yj/" — adradit — approaches so close as nearly 
to touch — " radit iterleevum interior," — ^neid 5. 



ON 'iHE SUBLIMt. 



47 



more boldly." — For this excuse, they say, palliates 
the boldness. But although I a|)prove of those ex- 
cuses, yet 1 assert, (as 1 did about figures!) that 
well timed and violent passions, and true sublimity, 
are the proper palliatives for the number and bold- 
ness of metaphors ; because it is natural for them, 
by the violence of their career, to carry all before 
them, or rather to require those bold figures as ab- 
solutely necessary ; nor do they allow the audience 
time to blame their number, as they inspire them 
with the feelings of the speaker. At least in common- 
place observations and descriptions nothing is so 
expressive as frequent and continued tropes ; by 
means of which the anatomy of the human body is 
magnificently described in Xenophon, and still n ore 
divinely in Plato. Man's head," he says, is a cita- 
" del ; the neck is placed as an isthmus between it and 
the breast, and the vertebrae are placed under it as 
hinges ; that pleasure is the bait \X)liicli allures men to 
evil ; that the tongue is the informer of tastes ; that 
the heart, the knot of the veins, and the fountain 
" of the blood, which rapidly circulates, is placed in 
" a well secured habitation;" the pores he calls narrow 
streets; and says that the gods, intending a provi- 
*' sion for the palpitation of the heart, under the ap- 
prehension of evil, and the excitement of passion, 
when it is inflamed, inserted the lungs soft and 
bloodless, and having within small pores like a 
spunge, to act as a inalagma'^, in order that when 
^' anger boils in it, falling on a yielding substance it 
may not be injured ; and he called the seat of the 
*^ concupiscible passions — the woman's apartment ; 
that of the irascible — the man's apartment; that 

J In the 1 7th Section — To ravuv v-^os xa) ^roihsj Sec, 
2 Langbaene says, this was some soft substance used by the be- 
sieged to deaden the force of their opponents engines. Faber asserts 
it was some soft substance placed between the shoulders and a load, 
to relieve them from the pressure. Others have assigned diflPerent 
uses, any one of which would sufficiently exlain the author's meaning. 
— Plato has ^«X«»ev — soft ground for leaping on. 



48 



LONGINUS 



the spleen is the kitchen ^ of what is received within, 
where, being filled w^ith excrements, it is swelled to 
a great size, yet soft in its consistence. But after- 
wards, says he, the gods covered all with flesh, op- 
posing the flesh like a rampart as a defence against 
" external injury J the blood he calls the pasture of 
*^ the flesh ; and for the sake of sustenance, said he, 
" the gods opened rivulets through the body, cutting 
canals there as in a garden, that the streams of the 
" veins may flow as it were from some constant source, 
the body being a narrow^ channel^; but when death 
approaches, he says, that the cables of the soul, as 
of a ship, are loosed, and that she is left at li- 
berty." The same and innumerable like expressions 
are in the sequel ; but those already produced 
suffice to shew that tropes are naturally grand, and 
that metaphors add sublimity, and that descriptive 
and pathetic compositions use them in general 
with propriety. It is already evident, though I 
should not mention it, that the use of tropes, as of 
all other ornaments in writing, always tempts to ex- 
cess. Men censure even Plato for these, as he is 
often hurried away into immoderate and harsh me- 
taphors and pompous allegory from the rapture with 
which his words inspire him. " For is it not easy 
to imagine that a city should be tempered like a 
bowl, into which the maddening god of wine being 
" poured, boils ; but being corrected by another sober 
*^ god, and entering into a firm alliance with him, he 
makes a good and moderate draught." For, say they 

3 Plato has " IxfAayiiov^ — properly a napkin to wipe the hands with ; 
the spleen is used to keep the liver clean — x^-^'''^ Uuvi^^ Tra^tx^iv 

ic^l ercif^ov, kii Tra^ocKit^ivov ix,f4,oiy&i6v» — Plato's Tim^us. 

4 Longinus has improperly united two epithets occurring in 
different parts of Plato ; he first calls the body fiavo ; " rarus ut rete, 
corresponding to oi^cctos ; afterwards he calls it ccuXu^ — Pearce trans- 
lates the former •* Angustus" — from Odyssey, 



ON THE SUBLIME. 



4^9 



call water a sober god;" and the mixture a cor- 
rection/' becomes a poet not very sober himself. Ce- 
cilius laying hold on defects of this kind, had the 
boldness on account of them to affirm in his treatise 
on Lysias, that he was in every respect superior to 
Plato, influenced by two passions which do not con- 
tribute to direct the judgment. For though he loved 
Lysias more than he did himself, he hates Plato 
more than he loved Lysias ; and he asserted it for 
contention's sake — for his premises are not admitted, 
as he supposed they would ; as he produces him as 
a faultless and pure writer, whilst Plato often falls 
into errors ; but this is not the fact, nor any thing 
like it. 

SECTION XXXIIL 

COME then, let us suppose a writer in reality 
pure and faultless, — is it not worth while to consider 
at large this important question, which is to be pre- 
ferred in poetry and writing, sublimity with some 
errors, or what is moderate in its best parts, but 
correct and faultless ? And still more, whether the 
number or excellence of the beauties should with 
justice bear the prize in writing ? For those are en- 
quiries peculiar to a treatise on sublimity, and ab- 
solutely require examination, I well know that a 
sublime genius is far from being correct (for that ac- 
curacy in every point is exposed to the danger of 
flatnessi) but in sublimity as in great wealth, 
something must be overlooked. Consider whether 
this be not a necessary consequence, that authors 
of humble moderate talents, as they hazard nothing, 
and aim not at excellence, will in general remain 
faultless and more^afe than others; but that those 
of a sublime nature are liable to error on account 
of that very sublimity. Nor am I ignorant of this 
other consideration, that all human works are best 

F 

^ Serpit humi tutus ni mi um timidusq : procellae. 

Art of Poetry- 



50 



known by their imperfection, and that the recollec- 
tion of errors remains indelible; biu that of excel- 
lencies quickly passes away^. But I, who have 
remarked not a few fault*^ in Horner^ and those other 
writers who are most celebrated^ and am by no means 
pleased with such slips, (thou<^^h I do not consider 
them wilful errors, but rather oversights occasioned by 
their negligence, expressed carelessly and at random, 
unknown to themselves irom the sublimity of their 
nature) nevertheless am of opinion, that excellencies 
of an higher order, though they may not preserve 
an equality throughout, should always hold the first 
rank if it were for no other reason than their sub- 
limity^. Because Apollonius, the author of the Argo- 
nautics, was a faultless writer (and in Pastorals Theo- 
critus was most happy, except in a few things where he 
quitted his province); would you therefore wish to be 
Apollonius rather than Homer? but what ! Is Era- 
tosthenes in his Erigone (for it is a delicate poem ^ 
without a single fault,) a poet superior to Archilochus, 
who unexpectedly breaks forth-^ into many irregu- 
larities by the force of that godlike spirit, whicii it 
is difficult to reduce to laws? but what ! ^ In Lyrics 
would you choose to be Bacchylides rather than 
Pindar^ and in tragedy Ion of Chios, than, ye gods ! 
the great Sophocles ? for they are faultless, and with 
a smooth delicate style have left nothing without de- 

2 Discit enim Citius meminitq : libentius illud 
Quod quis deridet quam quod probat et veneratur, 

Horace's Epistles. 

3 Verumubi plura nitent in carmine non ego paucis 
OfFendar maculis quas aut incuria fudit, 

Aut humana parum cavit natura. Art of Poetry. 

4j He shews, by using the dinninutive, how much this delicate ni- 
cety lessens the grandeur of composition ; in the next Section he ap- 
plies XcytJitfv to that pretty interesting speech of Hyperides for Phryne. 

5 Unexpectedly produces — without any design formed at the com- 
mencement. Intending to move in the usual track, his spirit becomes 
unmanageable, and in spite of himself, he is hurried into those brave 
irregularities. 

6 This whole passage is a striking illustration of what he says in 



ON Ti!E SUIiLlME. 



51 



coration^ ; whilst Pintiar and Sophocles sometimes 
by their rapidity set every thint^ as it were in ablaze, 
but are unexpectedly extinguished and sink most 
unhappily. Truly no jnan ot* sense, collecting toge- 
ther all the plays of lon^ would put them in com- 
petition with that single play of Sophocles^ — the 
QEdipus. 

SECTION XXXIV. 

If the beauties of composition are to be estimated 
by their number, not their quality, Hyperides would 
thus excel Demosthenes in every respect; for he is 
more harmonious, has more excellencies, and is nearly 
perfect in all things, as a master of the five exercises 
who is inferior to the other combatants, who indivi- 
dually excel him in all exercises, but is superior to 
those of his own stampi. For Hyperides to an imi- 
tation of all the excellencies of Demosthenes (except 
composition) has moreover united the beauties and 
graces of Lysias. For he is smooth where there is oc- 
casion for simplicity, and does not (as Demosthenes) 
deliver every thing in the same strain and with the 
same violence, and has a moral style, sweet and pleas- 
ing2 agreeably seasoned ; there are innumerable turns 
of wit in him; his raillery is most refined ; there is a no- 

F 2 

^ Such are the writers Cieero describes, as *' picti, Ornati," 
^ Dacier's remarks on this passage are, I should have translated it 
" Like a prize -Jightsr, called Pentathle, (lTjyT«^X#?) who is indeed 
" beaten by all the prize-fighters {ayuviffvu v) in all the battles he under- 
takes ; but excels all who practise, as well as he, (/^/wr^Tv tj 'r:ivra0Kc'j») 
f.ve sorts of exercises.'"' Tjius Longir.us' thought is very fine in 
" saying " if we should judge of merit rather by the number than 
" excellence, of virtues and compare Hyperidts with Demosthenes, like 
*' two, prize- fighters, who fight at five sorts of weapons; the former 
would very much surpass the latter ; whereas if we make a judgment 
" of both of them by one exercise only, the latter would surpass the 
" former much more, as a prize-fighter that keeps only to ^^Testiing 
*' will easily be too hard for one who fights at five weapons," 

2 The words ^sros yXvxvn^ros vi^u crept from the margin into the 
text, being placed there to explain the two following words:-— 
Mor : 



52 



LONGINUS 



bleness in it ; graceful^ in irony ; liis jeists not inelegant 
or forced (like those imitators of the Attics), but suited 
to his subject ; happy in turningarguments into ridi- 
cuk^, great comic powers; with a well directed 
playfulness his sting is inimitable, and in all those 
qualities his grace (1 may nearly say) is inimitable 
he is also admirably adapted by nature to excite com- 
passion ; diffuse ^ in his fables, and has a wonderful 
address in turning from his argument with a flexible 
spirit 6, as (for instance) in those poetic fables about 
Latona ; and he has composed a funeral oration with 
such pomp and ornament that I know not if any one 
can equal him. Now Demosthenes is unsuccessful 
in describing manners, not diffuse, by no means a 
pliant 7 or shewy speaker, and for the most part de- 
void of all those qualities that have been mentioned ; 
where he forces himself to be merry or facetious, he 
rather becomes ridiculous than excites laughter, and 
when he attempts to approach an agreeable style he 
is farthest from it ; if he had attempted to compose 
that elegant oration for Phryne or Authenogenes he 

^ ty^raXa^^rrgfiv— venustate, elegantia conditum — " Palaestra deco- 
ra." Kor : MoR : 

4 We use this figure when through contempt we suppress the very 
name of the thing we speak of ; thus in -^schines, uv, ^^t ra ov»fAar» 
nto{jti4 with which contemptuous manner of mentioning the towns, 
Demosthenes upbraids him, saying, ^iucu^uit to. ;c^^iK. 

Mo R : 

° By his joining f6i;!^v/u,iv6s to fAu&oXoynffaty I should understand 
him to signify not barely fabulous narrations as his Latona, but that 
diffuse pleasing style which orators or philosophers employ, when 
leaving close arguments and metaphysical subtleties, they address 
themselves to the affections of their hearers and endeavour to captivate 
them by this amusing story-telUng style. Plato introduces Socrates 
as applying this term fAb$o>,oynff&a.i to himself occasionally. Mo r : 

6 Some Latin versions thus translate this passage—" Et in flexu 
Cursus adhuc ita integer ut molliter spirans finire Cursum pcssit. 

7 The meaning of the Greek term vy^os is explained by Dion* 
Hal. 



ON THE SUBLIME. 



53 



would have raised Hyperides still higher. But since, 
as I think, the beauties of the one, though numerous, 
are without sublimity, and belong to a person of no 
excitement, are tame, and permit the hearer to be 
unmoved, no one who reads Hyperides is impassion- 
ed ; but the other having acquired qualities of the 
highest order, and improved to the highest perfec- 
tion — a tone of sublimity — heartfelt passion — a co- 
piousness of style — justness of conception s — rapi- 
dity—in addiiion, (what is peculiar to him) a force 
and power which none have ever approached. — Since 
I say he had collected within hiaiself in abundance 
those gifts bestowed by the gods, (for it is not right 
to call them human) he on this account excels all 
rivals in those beauties which he possesses, and to 
compensate for what he does not possess, he strikes 
down with his thunder, and consumes in his blaze 
the orators of every age. And sooner could a man 
gaze upon the flashing lightnings than behold with 
steady eyes his successive and various passions. 

SECTION XXXV. 

WITH respect to Plato, the difference between 
him and Lysias is, as I have said, of another kind ; 
for Lysias being inferior not only in the excellency but 
number of his beauties, has surpassed him more in 
his faults than he has been surpassed in excellen- 
cies. What then had those divine writers who aim 
at sublimity in their composition in view, when they 
despised this accuracy in every part? this with many 
other considerations ; That nature designed that we 
should be no mean or groveling animals, but intro- 
ducing us into life and ihis wide universe as into a 

F 3 

8 A Laertio definitur, " Naturalis facultas inveniendi aut exco 
gitandi quid deest fieri. — P. 



54 



LOKGINUS 



crowded assembly to be spectators of all her works, 
and to contend eagerly for glory;* she implanted in 
our souls from their first creation an invincible pas- 
sion for every thing sublime and more divine than 
we are. Wherefore even this whole universe is not 
sufficient for the contemplation and vast powers of 
the human mind, but its thoughts pass far beyond 
the limits of the surrounding world ; and if any one 
should take a survey of the life of man, which abounds 
most with what is great and illustrious, he would 
soon be sensible of the end of his creation. Hence 
forced by a natural impulse, we do not admire small 
streams, though clear and useful, but the Nile, the 
Ister, or the Rhine, and most of all the Ocean ; nor 
do we view the fire kindled on our hearth, though it 
preserves a clear light, with more admiration than 
the stars of heaven, though often obscured and dark- 
ened ; nor do we think it more an object of won- 
der than the craters of JEtna^ whose chasms send 
up stones and whole rocks from the abyss, and some- 
times pour forth rivers of this same fire. With re- 
spect to such tilings this we may affirm ; that what is 
useful or necessary is easily acquired by man, {and is 
not therefore an object of admiration) but what is un- 
expected and hard to be acquired always excites his 
ndmiration. 

SECTION XXXVI. 

WITH respect to those naturally sublime in 
writing, (in whom sublimity never occurs without its 
advantage and use i) we must here consider that such 
writers though far from perfection, are however above 
what is mortal; and that other things prove those 
who use them to be men, but sublimity raises them 

* uya)Vi(fia,$ — Imitatores— CEmulantes naturara magnis operibus arti^ 
— Weiske 

1 In the preceding Section he said, we admire the celestial fires 
though they are often obscured, and the burning ^tna though its 
Sre is often destructive — how much more ought we admire sublimity 
which is far from being destructive or useless to men,— Pearce. 



ON THE SUBLIME. 



55 



nearly to the grandeur of the gods — and that what 
is faultless cannot be censured, but the sublime is 
looked on with admiration. What need I further 
add to these, that each of those writers by one sub- 
lime and exaited passage amply redeems his former 
errors, and (which is of the greatest force) that if 
any one selecting the errors of Homer, Demosthe- 
nes, Plato, and those others, as many as are the 
most sublime, should heap them all together, they 
would be found to bear a trifling or rather not the 
smallest proportion to those things so beautifully ex- 
pressed in every page by those heroes of literature. 
Wherefore every age and generation that cannot be 
accused of folly through envy, have given to them 
the prize of victory, and to the present day preserve 
It froQi being wrested from them, and seem resolved 
to watch it for tlicm. 

As long as streams i?i silver mazes rove^ 
Or spring in annual green renexvs the grove* 

Fenton. 

To him who proposes this objection that a Co- 
lossus full of errors is not better than Polycletus' 
lifeguard man, it is easy with many other things to 
.say, that in the works of art what is most accurate 
is most admired, but in the works of nature that 
which is sublime ; but by nature man is endowed 
with speech. As therefore resemblance to man is 
required in statues, so in speech that which is more 
than human. It is fit however (for this precept wheels 
back to the commencement of the treatise), since a 
faultless style is for the most part the successful pro- 
duction of art, and sublimity though it cannot pre- 
serve the same tone throughout, is the production of 
a grand nature ; it is Jit I say^ by every means to 
acquire art to assist nature, for the union of those 
may be perhaps perfection. Those things it was ne- 
cessary for me to determine about the proposed ques- 



56 



LONGINUS 



tions, but let each enjoy those opiiuons with which 
he is best pleatied. 

SECTION XXXVIL 

TO metaphors (fi^' I mi st return to my subject*) 
comparisons and hvperboles have an aiiinity differing 
only in this respect * * * * 

SECTION XXXVIII. 

SUCH hyperboles are very bad, if you have not 
your brains in your heels and tread on them," where- 
fore we must know t^ow far the limits of each extend ; 
for sometimes to over-shoot^ the mark destroys the 
the hyperbole, and such things overstretched are re- 
laxed and changed into contrary effects. Thus Iso- 
crates, I know not how, committed a childish act 
through an anxiety to express every thing in a pomp- 
ous manner. The design of his panegyric is lo prove 
that the state of the Athenians surpassed that of the 
Lacedemonians in benefits to the Greeks, but in the 
very commencement he places this, Words then 
have such power that it is possible to make great ac- 
tions appear contemptible, and clothe in sublimity 
trifling ones ; to speak of old things in a n . vv style, 
and relate in an old fashioned manner things that 
have just occurred." Will you then Isocrates (any 
one may say) thus change what concerns the Lacede- 
monians and Athenians ; for ihis encomium on v/ords 
nearly g^'\es his audience an advice and waraing to 
distrust him. Consider then whether those hyper- 
boles are not the best which (as we before said on 
figures) conceal the fact, that they are hyperboles. 
But such is always the case, when through excessive 
passion they are accompanied by a pom^p of circum- 

* From which he digressed at the 52d Section. 
^ The Greek term is properly applied to an anoW;* which Jn'h 
heyond the object at which it was aimed. 



li 




ON THE SUBLIME. 



57 



stances ; which Thucydicles effects in speaking of 
those who perished in Sicily and the Syraciisans 2, 
plunging in after them, chiefly massacred those in 
the river J and the water was instantly discoloured 
" with blood ; but nevertheless it was drank though 
"polluted with gore and mud, and stiU more, was ea- 
*^ gerly contended for, by manj that gore and blood 
were drank, " that it was even eagerly contended 
for/' the excess of the passion and the circumstances 
render credible. \nd this passage of Herodotus 
about those at Thermopylse is like the former. " In 
this place," said he, " the barbarians showering their 
darts, buried under them those defending themselves 
with their swords (as many of them as had swords re- 
" maining) and their hands and mouths^ here you 
will exclaim what an expression this is, fighting 
even with their mouths against armed men," and this 
" were buried under their darts yet this passage 
equally claims credit ; for the act does not seem to be 
accommodated to the hyperbole, but the hyperbole 
to be created with propriety by the act ; for works 
which approach extacy, and passions are (for I cannot 
cease insisting upon it) an universal remedy, and 
means of delivering you from any boldness of ex* 
pression ; whence the expressions in comedy, though 
falling into improbability, are credible, as they excite 

2 Dacier remarks it should be ot rg IL^ks^ivvn^at ; the passage is 
taken from the 7th book of Thucydides, where it is thus written in 
the 84th chapter — oi '2v^ciK^G-iot [/\v §g K^-Af^vai^its) i^aiXXov ecvtttHv 

iTTt KOS,T0cS,t(,yTiq, &C ; 

We may remark Longinus in general quotes from memory ; 
his lively imagination could hardly submit to store up each particle of 
his favourite author ; he marked their beauties, and treasured them 
carefully in his mind, relying on his own ability to supply whatever 
may escape him, and we have seldom to regret this liberty, if it de- 
serves to be called so. 

3 Dacier thinks it is more likely Herodotus wrote ^astf•^/ ^etf ^o^*^, 
and that the text was corrupted in Longinus' time; he gives many 
reasons to support his conjecture. Boileau thinks the passage clear 



LONG }N US 



t/ie passion of lauuhter, he had a farm which con- 
tained less land than a Lacedemonian letter;" for 
laughter is a passion arising from pleasure. But as 
hyperboles are used to enlarge, they are likewise 
used to diminish ; since extension is comnion to both, 
and the diasyrm (a kind of hyperbole) is the increase 
of an object*s lowness, 

SECTION XXXIXi. 

THE fifth of those parts, which in the commence- 
ment we set forth as contributing to the sublime still 
remains, my friend, viz. a certain arrangement of 
the words 2 about which though we have spoken at 
large in two former treatises, whatever we could ar- 
rive at by observation, we must of necessity add this 
for the present subject, that harmonious composition 
is not only the natural cause of persuasion and plea- 
sure to mankind, but also the wonderful instrument 
of sublimity and passion^. For does not the flute 
infuse certain passions into those who listen to it, 

and intelligible, and attributes Dacier's reflections on himself, and 
anxiety to amend the text to a zeal more pious than reasonable to de- 
fend the father of his illustrious spouse, who dissatisfied with the 
present reading, in the spirit of conjecture proposed x^^f^'^^'^'S 

1 If in this Section I commit any serious errors, I solicit the rea- 
der's indulgence ; let him peruse it with attention. It has many dif- 
ficulties. — MoR, 

2 Pearce ingeniously conjectures that the superfluous in this 
sentence belongs to offex. ^zw^'as, and that it owes its present place 
to the error of some traiiscriber ; iie was led to this conjecture by ob- 
serving in the 4th Seciior. two lines intervene in Hudson's Edition 
between words which in the others followed closely ; those lines he 
supposes formed but one in the MS. and were omitted by the careless 
transcriber. 

^ I have translated from the correction of Tollius, who has sub- 
stituted fjt.iyaXnyo^ioL'; for ^sr' IXgy^s^/a^. —Pearce retains the old 
reading, includiirg it in a parenthesis — and thinks, if the xa,) were 
omitted, it would agree with the feelings and style of Longinus, 
*' Harmony is a woncu vful instrument to excite our passions (provided 
we are blessed with liberty);" an ardent lover cf liberty, as appears 
from his life and writings, he supposed those base minds destitute 
of passions, that could tamely submit to the yoke of slavery. 




ON THE SUBLIxME. 



59 



nnc! niiike them as it were bereft of reason, and filled 
wiih enthusiasm ? and giving an impression of the 
cndence 4^ does it not compel the listener to move 
accorilin^' to it, and keep time with it though he has 
no skill in music at all ? And indeed the sounds of 
the harp, though insignificant in themselves 5, by 
their change of tones, by mixing and tempering 
each other, often produce, as you know, the delight- 
ful effects of harmony — yet these are but the images 
and spurious imitations of the persusive voice of marij 
and not, as I have said, the genuine effects of human 
nature. Should we not think then that composition, 
as it is the harmonious union of words implanted by 
nature in man, and reaching the heart itself, not 
the ear alone ; as it excites in us various ideas of 
words, thoughts, actions, beauty, modulation, every 
thing born in us and connected with us ; as by the 
mixture and variety of its sounds it introduces into 
the souls of those present the passions which attend 
the speaker, and always obliges his audience to par- 
ticipate in his cause, and by raising on each other 
beautiful expressions, constructs a sublime edifice ; 
sJiould *is:e not thinks I say^ that by those means it 
both soothes us, and in every way disposes us to gran- 
deur, dignity, sublimity, and every thing which it 
embraces within itself, having the entire command 
of our thoughts? But to dispute about ihings so 
universally acknowledged would be madness, for ex- 
perience is sufficient proof. That sentiment which 
Demosthenes expressed about the decree is in appear- 

^ Pollux thus explains the term : 'Ba-i^ — to T<^gy«i top 
T^Qca h pv^f^oj, p. — I conceive h pv&f^u v/hich in this sentence 
to be quite superfluous, as it is f ally expressed by tt^o? rdvrr.v^ 
which fioes before. — Mor, 

5 aT\us, Each note taken separately moves no one — the 

wonderful effects ai e pi educed by a proper and sldlful mixture of 
the various -.otes, and thus ihe effects of composition are produced 

by ^.ihi i^oii 7roXv^:.6^(piGi rm (p^oyyuv, as he afterwards tells 
us. — Fr. Port. Pearce explains it by Quintiiian's ♦* quanquam 
" verba non exprimunt.'* 



§0 



LONGINUS 



ance sublime, and in truth, admirable — tStc to -vJ^jJ- 
fio-fiu Toy roTi tjT TriXii TTS^is-rdyrcc yJv}v>ov 7rec^iX6hv l^oh^iy, 
afTTTi^ vi(pog^ — ^' this decree made the danger which then 
stood over the city pass away like a cloud;*' but the 
grandeur of the expression ^ consists in the harmony 
not less than the sentiment; for it is for the most 
part exprssed in dactyls 7, for it is the most noble 
measure, and creates sublimity, wherefore they con- 
stitute heroic metre the grandest we are acquainted 
with — ihh UtTTFi^ n(p6q is rightly placed for transfer it 
from its own situation wherever you please, as 't«to 
Tfl-vJ/^^p^cr^tffc iV^rsi v£<pof, or even cut off but one syllable, 
90<rn((>c^ and you will see how much harmony conspires 
with sublimity — this ei(r7n^ ysipcj, stands firmly with 
the first numb^er, long consisting of 4 times 8; but 
one syllable being taken away li; n(p6s, it diminishes 
the sublimity by the subtraction, as on the contrary 
if you extend it, «^5re^6< j»g(f>e?, it has the same signifi- 
cation, but the cadence is not the same ; for by the 
length of the last measures the grandeur 9 of the 
sublimity is destroyed and relaxed. 

SECTION XL. 

BUT particularly the connexion of the members 
renders what you deliver strong, as it does bodies ; 

^ Tli(l)k/ynrui — Nocdle factum, Sonat, Sonorum est — as in Section 
40 — ^mriivra yhiTKi — ToL. 

Many have had a wrong conception of those dactyl numbers, 
confounding them with the feet called Dactyls; yet there is a great 
difference between them ; for the Dactyl number, time and pronun- 
ciation only are observed ; but for the Dactyl, order and position of 
letters must be minded ; thus the same word may be of the Dactyl 
number, and not a Dacty'-, as '^r,(pi(rf/.» — Dac. 

8 Vox u&'pno, quatuor temporibus constat : hue facit id, quod dic-it 
Quintil : " Longam esse daorum tem.porum, brevem unius etiam 
pueri Sciunt." — Peabce Dacier thinks both -words &<Ws^, vicpos 
are understood, and says, " this number is as much Dactyl as the 
rest, since the time of the last syllable is superfluous and goes for no- 
thing, as in Hypermeter verst " 

9 I should prefer iv cvov. as agreeing better with ^/a;^aX«ra<, we 
must here translate aTroniAov. celsa subiimitas. — MoR. 



ON THE SUBLIME. 61 

of which any one member separated from the other 
has by jtselt nothing valuable, but all united with 
each other, completely form the perfect body; thus 
the parts of the sublime torn from each other de- 
stroy the sublimity and themselves; but when embo- 
died by union and encircled by the bond of harmony 
they become sonorous by this encircling; and in 
the periods the sublime is the joint production of a 
multitude. It has been sufficiently shewn by me i 
that many poets and other writers, not sublime by 
nature, nay, even mean and humble, did, though 
using for the most part low and vulgar terms and 
haying no mark of excellence, by the bare compo- 
sition and connexion of them, effect grandeur and 
sublimity and the character of not beino- humble 
writers. (Many others did this with Philistus, Aris- 
tophanes in some passages, and Euripides in most.) 
Ihus m thelatter, Hercules, after the murder of his 
children, says — 

" Troubles so numerous Jill my crotsded mind, 
" That not one more can hope a place to find." 

The expression is very vulgar, but corresponding in 
structure to the sense, it becomes sublime 2 5 °but 
place them in any other order, and it will be evident 
that Isuripides was more a master of composition 
than sentiment. Of Dirce, dragged by the bull, he 
says — 

" When'er the madd'ning creature rag'd about. 
And whirled his bulk around in aiscJcward circles. 
The dame, the oak, the rock, were dragg'd alon'.s 

of \hftrst?or-Mo'r'' "^"'""^-^ ^'^^ ''^^•--s 

2 I have followed Sn-.itb. Weiske translates it differently " 4d 
verbumita x^Aa^s- Sed factum est sublime quippe con.positLe simih- 
tudenem habens {Sc : Cum t^y^xsy but in its compcsiticn has the ap- 
pearance of sublimity. ^ <^\^ 

S " If ever the bull turned round, it tcck and dragged with it th^ 
woman, rock, and oak, always changing its course." 



62 



LONGINUS 



Even the circumstance itself is noble, but becomes 
more forcible as the harmony of the sentence is nei- 
ther hurried nor mechanically accelerated ; but the 
words firmly advancing to solid sublimity have 
props for their mutual support, and bars to prevent 
too rapid time. 

SECTION XLL 

BUT nothing so much debases the sublime as 
numbers broken and rapid in a sentence ; such as Pyrr- 
hics, Trochees, Dichorees, entirely suited to dancing ; 
for those inferior numbers appear brisk and neat 
but devoid of passion, and by their sameness shew- 
ing everything on their surface, and what is still worse, 
is, that as the notes in songs divert the attention of 
the audience from the sense, and forcibly draw it on 
themselves, thus things delivered in inferior numbers 
do not excite in the audience a passionate attention 
to the sense but the measure ; so that sometimes fore- 
seeing the proper pauses they beat time with those 
speaking, and even anticipating, mark the pause be- 
fore them as in a dance. Those words likewise, 
which lie too close, and are chopped into few and short 
syllables, are without sublimity, and those that are 
connected, as it were with nails, in a clumsj^ and 
rough manner i. 

SECTION XLII. 

TOO great brevity of style is a diminution of sub- 
limity ; for sublimity is mutilated when contracted 

* Weiske explains hoc^iSnicoret, standing with legs far asunder^ on 
a broader base, and therefore more firmly. 

1 ^EyKOtrh I take to be the hole made in a piece of wood into which 
another was to be inserted — the mortise — the o-Kkn^orriSf that part 
which is inserted — the tenon — those when thus joined are said to be 
^vvhh/AiveCf but if they are moreover kept together by nails, they are 
said to be I'^a'uv i things thus united must be firmly and closely jpin- 
ed. — Weiske. 



ON THE SUBLIME. 



63 



into too small a space; but let not those things 
which are properly contracted be here understood ; 
but such as, on the contrary, are curtailed and 
minced ; for brevity restrains the force of the mind, 
conciseness leads it straight forward. It is manifest 
then, on the other hand, that those things too much 
extended are lifeless, being relaxed by their unrea-- 
sonable length. 

SECTION XLIII. 

MEANNESS in the terms has great power to de- 
base the sublime ; thus in Herodotus, a tempest is di- 
vinely described as far as its circumstances, but it con- 
tains some expressions far inferior to the subject ; (and 
this perhaps l^io-dcnr 6c6Xei<r(r7ig — " the seas began to 
seeth"— since l^tTuc^i takes away much of the sublimity 
by its harsh sound.) At the same time i," said he, 
" the wind vt^fFtto-vmas tired out'^ — and ^' ri?^osu^cc^i*' an 
unpleasant end, " received those caught in the storm;" 
for the word " K^wuirctt^ is tired out,^' is without weight 
and even vulgar, and unpleasant not suited to 

such a tragical end. In like manner Theopompus, 
preparing to describe in the grandest manner, the 
descent of the Persian into Egypt, has destroyed 
the whole by vulgar terms, " For what city or what 
nation in Asia did not send embassies to the king? 
*^ what thing produced from the earth or wrought 
by art, what rare or precious thiug that was not 
brought as a present to him ? were not many 
sumptuous carpets, and garments, partly purple, 
partly embroidered, partly white ; were not many 
golden tents brought, furnished with every thing 
useful, were not many robes and sumptuous 

1 Pearcehas injudiciously changed aXA.' to — after making that 
passing observation on the x»»«o-rofAt», (if it was ever made by Longi- 
nus,) he passes to the and nothing is more used than af- 

ter a digression. — MoR. 



64* 



LONGINUS 



couches; besides vessels 2 of wrought silver and 
gold, bowls and cups, some of which you may 
scQ set with gems and others beautifully and sump- 
tuously embossed, besides an infinite number of 
" ^rms, partly Grecian, partly Barbarian ; and 
beasts of burden beyond number, and victims de- 
signed for sacrifice ; and in addition, many bushels 
" of seasoned meats, and many sacks and bags of 
oooks and papers, and every other useful thing; 
and so much pickled meat of all sorts of animals, 
that the heaps were so large that those who ap- 
preached them from a distance, might fancy they 
" were mounds or hills that were raised He here 
sinks from the sublime to lowness, when on the con- 
trary, he ought to become elevated ; for, blending 
in his wonderful narrative of the entire preparations, 
bags, pickles, sacks, he has given us the picture of 
a kitchen* For as, if any one in the midst of those 
ornaments, golden vases, and goblets set with jewels, 
embossed silver, golden tents, and bottles, should 
bring and lay down bags and sacks, it would be an 
act odious to the sight ; thus such expressions are 
the disgrace of description, and become in a manner 
stains on it when unseasonably introduced. 

But it was in his power to run over in a summary 
manner, what he says were collected heaps, and 
changing the expression, thus speak of the other 
preparations: " there were camels and a multitude 
of other beasts carrying loads of all things that con- 
tribute to luxury, and the enjoyment of the table 

2 xoi>.os ec^yv^i? — argentea vasa depressis Jiguris. Apud Xenoph, 
Memor. 3. 10. 1. xoiXa &ufj(.o!,ra, sunt Corpora quorum partes plures 
sunt depressae : Nam v-^^yiXo, opponit, in quibus plura eminent 

MoR. 

3 Vv'eiske proposes " ;^yr^a^ jSaX^wv oUae bulborum" — which were 
used in cooking, and esteemed a delicacy. " Veteres, Afrorum epi- 
menia bulbi^' luv,-- what business had the Persians of books— Dacier 
translates ;^«gra/ (hiUtuv, reams of paper, to ^^Tap up^ the sweetmeat*, 
and spices he speaks of. 




ON THE SUBLIME* 



65 



or call them ^' heaps of all sorts of fruit and those 
things best suited for an elegant repast or delicate 
living;" or if he wished (as he did) to lay down all 
things so precisely, he might even say, " all the de- 
licacies of cooks and caterers/' For we must not 
in the sublime descend to sordid and blemished 
terms, unless we are severely pressed by some ne- 
cessity ; but it is proper to have expressions corres- 
ponding to the actions, and to imitate nature that 
formed man, who neither placed those parts of us, 
which it is indecent to mendon, in view, nor the 
vents of the excrements, but concealed them as well 
as she was able, and (according to Xenophon) re- 
moved their ci)annels as far as possible, not to dis- 
figure the beauty of the animal. But it is not ne- 
cessary to enumerate individualiy the causes of a 
low style, for having before pointed out those things 
vvhich render writings sublime and noble, it is ma- 
nifest that their opposites will render writings for the 
most part low and inelegant. 



SECTION XLIV. 



THIS remains which, on account of your fond* 
ness for useful knowledge, I shall not be unwilling 
to add, and state clearly vv'hat a certain philosopher 
lately made a subject of inquiry : saying, " I am surpri- 
sed, as are many others, how it happens that in our 
time there are geniuses gifted with persuasive powers 
to the highest degree, and well acquainted with the 
world, forcible and prompt, and well stored with 
that species of writing calculated to please, but are by 
no means very lofty and sublime (except some rare 
instance occur) ; such a dearth of writings of this de- 
scription is there in this age!" Are we to believe, 
said he, that trite observation, that a democracy is 
the careJii^l nurse of sublime minds, under which al- 

g3 



arejkil i 

4 



66 



XONGINUS 



most exclusively those sublime writers flourished and 
died ? Liberty, some one reniaks, is able to nourish 
the thoughts of sublime writers, and draw forth and 
urge on, the ardour of their mutual contest and strife 
for preeminence. Moreover, on account of there- 
wards proposed in every democracy, the natural fa- 
cilities of the minds of those orators are sharpened 
by exercise, and polished as it were, by use, and as 
is natural, shine forth free as their actions. But we 
of the present day, said he, seem from our child- 
hood taught to endure lawful servitude, being 
swathed, I may nearly say, in its habits and customs 
from our tender years, and never havino; drank of 
that noble and natural source of writing, I mean, Li- 
berty ; wherefore we go forth nothing but pompous 
flatterers. On this account it is, he used to say, that 
other faculties happen to slaves, but that no slave 
can be an orator, for his illiberal and fettered spirit, 
beat down, and subdued by his constant habit of sla- 
very ^5 always bursts forth y for according to Homer, 

Jove fixed it certain that whatever day 
Makes man a slave^ takes half his xcorth awaj/,^' 

Pope. 



As (if this which I hear be true) the cases in which 
those creatures, called Pj gmies, are bred, not only pre- 
vent the growth of those enclosed, but even make them 
less on account of the restraint - placed on their bodies 
= — thus any person may call every servitude, though it 



^ Thus Plautus— 

Homineiii servum snos 
Domitos habere oportet ocuios, et manus 
Orationemque. To up. 

2 Dacier says the hff-/iies meant Sivaths with which dwarfs were 
swaddJed up fi'orn head to fcot. Weiske thinks it nothing but the 
'yy^rroKofcov "which, as it fitted the body so tightly may i»with pro- 
priety called a band. ^^1^ , 



ON THE SUBLIME. 



67 



should be the most lawful, the case and public dun* 
geon of the mind. 

Interrupting him, I replied — My friend, it is easy 
and usual with man always to censure the present. 
But consider whether the peace over the world does 
not corrupt great geniuses, or rather that constant 
war^ which keeps our minds in a state of siege, and 
besides, those passions which garrison the present age, 
and rushing from their hold ruin and destroy us. 
For avarice with which we are all incurably infected, 
and voluptuousness, enslave, or rather (as any one 
may say) sink and overwhelm men and their for- 
tunes. Avarice is a disease which renders us abject, 
voluptuousness renders us debased. I cannot on 
consideration find how it is possible that those, who 
value infinite ^ wealth so much, or to speak more 
truly, adore it as their god, can avoid receiving 
those evils connected vi^ith it which enter the mind ; 
for extiavagance always follows immoderate and ex- 
cessive wealth, joined to, and keeping pace with it, 
the latter opening the entrance of cities and houses, 
into which the former enters and there dwells with 
it; and when these have spent some time in life, 
they build their nests (according to tlie philosophers) 
and soon intent on issue, they beget arrogance, 
pride, and luxury, not their spurious offspring, but 
truly legitimate. But if any one should permit those 
children of wealth to arrive at maturity, thty quickly 
produce in his mind inexorable masters, insolence, 
injustice, iujpudence* It is necessary that those 
things should be thus, and that men should no 
longer raise their views or have any anxiety about 
fame, but that the corruption of such ages be en- 

^ Weiske remarks that we have an Antithesis here between n t«? ei»; 
ug^vn and ucrigio^ ; }i7o<ri -roksf^osj the world is at peace, but the passions 
of rcankind ket-p up a coiistant war. ToUius seems to have mistaken 
{»bis passage, j^vhich he has been followed by Dacier and Boiieau. 

* ^;69A««r'^^Bi Indomitum censum," — Juv. 



(58 



LONGINUS 



tirely completed by a gradual process, and the sub- 
limity of the soul fade and perish and be neglected, 
since they admire their mortal senseless parts, ne- 
glecting to improve what is in:imortal. No one 
bribed to a decision can continue to be a free and 
upright judge of what is fair and honest, for it is 
necessary for him who receives the bribe, that his 
own should be the fair and honest side. Thus, in 
the same way, when bribes influence the whole course 
of our lives, and the expectation of another's death, 
and designs laid for wills ; and when we purchase 
gain from every source, even at the hazard of our 
lives, reduced to slavery, each by his avarice, in 
such a contagious corruption of life, can v/e suppose 
that there still remains any candid and ud corrupted 
judge of what is truly sublime, and likely to last for 
ages, and that he is not influenced 5 by a dr sire of 
grovving rich ? But consider whether it be not bet- 
ter for such as we are, to be governed than to be [ree ; 
since our desires, left quite at liberty, and as it were, 
let loose from their prison on our neighbours would 
deluge the world with vice. In line, I said, that 
sloth has been the destruction of the geniuses of 
the present day in which we all (with fev.' exceptions) 
pass our lives, labouring and u^ing exertion for no 
other moti\ e than ostentation and pleasure, and not 
for any solid advantage, which alone is worthy of 
emulation and praise. 

But it may be better to om.it those enquiries and 
proceed to the things whicli follow ; the^e are the 
passions, about which we freely 6 promised to wiite | 

^ This is a most expressive word, and only used by our great Lon- i 
ginus — 'A^;^«/^eo';« j£<v, signifies to hold the comitia for creating ma- 
gistrates — iience to solicit for those offices — K«t«^;)^, is to prevail on 
the people by vile and improper arts — to seduce with bribes— to get 
them over — thus the term is to be understood. — Too?. 

^ JVon expectans, ut tu me excitares, sed sponte occurrens deside- 




ON THE SUBLIME. 



69 



in a separate treatise, as in my opinion they constitue 
a part of writing in general as well as the sublime. 

Dr. Pearce's adyice will be a seasonable conclusion. " Read over 
very frequently this golden treatise (which deserves not only to be 
read but inaitated) that you may hence understand not only how the 
best authors have written, but learn yourself to become an author of 
the first rank. Read therefore, and digest it, then take up your pen 
in the words of Virgil's Kisus," 

Aliquid jamdudum invadere magnum, 

Mens agitatmihi, nec placida contenta quiete est.— -Smith. 




/I 




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